


As You Wish

by BetsyByron



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Genie/Djinn, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Djinni & Genies, F/M, Falling In Love, Fate & Destiny, M/M, Magic, Wishes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:15:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22634950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BetsyByron/pseuds/BetsyByron
Summary: Modern AU in which Merlin is a genie. Mostly boys falling in love (pretty much instantly) and figuring out destiny - full disclosure, the plot is thin.
Relationships: Gwaine/Percival (Merlin), Gwen/Lancelot (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 144





	1. Chapter 1 (Arthur)

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, almost two years since I last posted something! I'm always writing, but rarely have anything that's complete enough to share... Hope you'll enjoy that one! It is all written, I just need to proof-read each short chapter before I post so that might take a few extra days depending on my work week.
> 
> The Arthurian legends don't exist in this AU for plot reasons.

Arthur was not a man of faith. Or superstition. He hated the thought of a higher power, one that had control over your life and fate. He believed in taking responsibility for oneself, in achieving things through hard work and determination. Sure, privilege and a bit of luck went a long way in helping some people along, but Arthur was of the firm conviction that nothing in life was just handed to you. Things didn't just happen as if by magic. 

Which was why he was still staring blankly at the young man standing before him, who had just appeared in a wisp of smoke, called him master and offered him three wishes. He glances back at the bottle in his hand - an antique he was looking at for a potential gift for Morgana - as if it held some answers. The bottle itself was simple blue glass, but it was the stopper that had caught his eye, an intricately carved silver bird that was simply stunning. And when Arthur had carefully stroke a finger along its wings…

"Take your time." The apparition spoke again, with just a hint of sarcasm. "I've had worse reactions."

Arthur looked at the boy, then back at the bottle again, unable to make sense of it all.

"It's a merlin." The other said, apparently determined to fill the silence in the time Arthur needed to gather his wits. "My bird."

"Your bird?" Arthur repeated blankly.

"The bird. On the top there. It's a merlin. They're like small falcons."

"I know what a merlin is." Arthur frowned, his brain pursuing the conversation while trying to remind him there were more pressing matters to address, such as _What the actual fuck just happened?_ He glanced at the bottle again.

"Yes, I did just come from there." The boy commented. "Do you need to sit down or are we going to move past this shock anytime soon?"

"You're a… a genie?" It sounded stupid to Arthur's ears even as he said it. 

That got him an eye-roll. "No, I'm a leprechaun." He noticed Arthur was just staring again. "Oh my world, I'm kidding. Leprechaun are the worst. Yes, I'm a genie, you clotpole. Appearing from a bottle, three wishes, that usually gives it away."

"Clotpole." Arthur repeated, getting more bewildered by the second.

"Anything more constructive you'd like to say, I'm all yours."

Arthur took one steadying breath and refrained from saying what his rational thoughts were screaming: there is no such thing as magic. Let alone genies. But. Even if he had wanted to try and piece together an explanation for the boy's sudden appearance, the latter was now inspecting himself in a large antique mirror and altering his previously very old-fashioned hairstyle and clothing by _pointing at them_. Arthur watched as his hair shortened and his clothes modernised - moderately, he still looked like he'd last been out in the 90's - and decided that he might as well accept the obvious fact that there was a magical being in front of him.

"Okay." He breathed out. "You've taken me by surprise."

"Clearly." The genie said, turning away from his reflection and back to Arthur. "But you know, all things considered you haven't tried to stab or exorcise me, nor did you scream or pass out, so you're already doing better than some of my masters."

"Have you had a lot?" Arthur asked.

The boy shifted, looking slightly uncomfortable for the first time. "I've been around. I don’t really talk about it, if that's alright. Call it genie-master confidentially."

"Of course." Arthur accepted. "So how does it work? The wishes, I mean. What are the rules?" He was genuinely curious. 

"Balance. That's the only rule."

Arthur quirked a brow. The genie moved his hands as he explained. "Life only exists through a careful balance of elements that came together to make this planet sustain it. So I can grant anything you wish for, but it doesn't cancel out the logic of the world. It will have consequences, like in any ecosystem. Say you wished for world peace, then all wars would stop, and it'd be great for a while. Then the population would increase at a higher rate than before, and food resources would become scarce, and people would start to starve, and then there would be a disease and you'd be living so close together it would spread faster than it can be stopped, and 80% of mankind would be wiped out after 30 years." He shrugged. "But then maybe not. Maybe people would live in peace and use their intelligence to use and treat the Earth better. I can't predict what will happen, the wish is a starting point. You have to be prepared to live with the consequences."

"Okay." Arthur said again, taking it in. He appreciated the example - it made sense to him. It seemed very rational for something that was so inherently impossible. But then again, he was having to very quickly review his previous understanding of what was possible or not. "That would be a pretty big thing to ask though. A big responsibility to take."

"Yes, and that's why most people don't wish for the world. Individualistic, self-serving wishes are much easier to map out. Then have the same consequences, though at a smaller scale. For example, you could wish for fame and success in your musical career, and that would seem harmless enough. But if this was 1962 and you became an overnight star, maybe that would have stopped the Beatles from becoming, well, the Beatles." 

"You make it sound like every wish will have disastrous consequences." Arthur pointed out. 

"Not necessarily." The genie shrugged. "Only unforeseeable. It's like flipping a coin. And it might not always be obvious either. A world without the Beatles could seem like a tragedy to some, but only in retrospect. You wouldn't know you're missing something you never knew."

Arthur felt his stomach twist at the words, and couldn't stop himself from blurting out. "That's not true." He looked down, as the boy cocked his head curiously, and added quietly. "I never knew my mother."

"Oh." A soft breath. "But you do know her." He said gently. "You've seen pictures. You've heard stories. You wouldn't miss her if there were no mothers. I don't."

Arthur's head snapped back up at that. "You don't…" He started. Being the kid whose mother had died had never been easy for Arthur growing up. But not having one at all?

The other shook his head. "I don’t think genies are born. More like they simply… start existing." He made a "poof!" kind of gesture with his hand. "I never really knew how that worked, actually. I can’t really die either."

"You can’t _really_ die?" Arthur picked up.

"When I take a corporeal form, I sort of can. This body feels and gets hurt and all that. I did get killed a few times. But the… genieness goes back in the bottle, and then I come back out good as new. Call it reincarnation, if you will. Or shape-shifting, I can do that too. I do like being a bird."

"You are so strange." Arthur murmured. 

"Compared to the many supernatural beings you've met before?" The genie quipped. 

Arthur snorted. "Point taken."

"You are actually handling this really well." The other offered. 

"Thank you." Arthur paused before he asked: "So, what about the usual no-no's? No wishing for more wishes, seems like the obvious trick…"

"You'd be surprised how many people don't even think of it." The genie commented. "But yeah. Three wishes, not a single more."

"I guess you can't bring someone back from the dead?"

"Oh, I can." The boy said sombrely. "If acting right away. But do you remember that thing about balance?"

"Yeah…" Arthur looked at him expectantly, and he made a face. 

"A life for a life." He spelt out. "If I give that life back to a person who's just lost it… it has to come from somewhere."

"I see." Arthur swallowed uncomfortably. From the body language of the boy before him, he could tell some people might not have the moral qualms to stop themselves from making that wish anyway. And that it had probably happened before. 

"The one thing I can't do is change the past." The genie added. "History is history, it is already written. I can't bring back Shakespeare, no matter how many people die in his place in 1616. As soon as an event has had consequences, it can no longer be altered. If you trip and break your wrist, you can wish for the wrist to not be broken, but you can't wish to not have tripped. It happened. Deal with it."

"That makes sense." Arthur said, although he was still trying to wrap his mind around this whole new perspective on life, how everything changed in the light of the knowledge that there _was_ something more than meets the eye to the universe. "What about falling in love?" 

The genie grinned. "I'm always glad popular culture does some of that explaining job for me." He said humorously. "That one is true, to an extent. Free will is why the consequences of your wishes can be so unpredictable. You can't wish genuine feelings into existence out of nowhere. The feelings would be fake, and you'd know it. But you could wish to have all the qualities a given person would fall in love with, so in a way, I suppose I can help with that in a way that isn't completely rapey. It might mean you wouldn't be the same person though, so it's another tricky one. Personally, I don't think any relationship should be based on one person having to _change_ to be accepted by the other, but that's just me."

"No, I can see that." Arthur nodded. "It'd seem like an… unreasonable shortcut."

The genie had a laugh, and Arthur caught himself thinking he was quite lovely to look at.

"Every wish is a bit of an unreasonable shortcut." He said with humour. "But I'm glad you agree. It's actually quite rare for masters to see it that way."

The title made Arthur cringe a little. "Well." He said. "Thank you for taking the time to explain." He held the bottle out to the boy. "And I appreciate the offer as well, but I am not a man of shortcuts. I do not need wishes, I will work for what I want out of life."

"Aw, mate, good for you." The genie smiled. "But it doesn't work that way."

"What do you mean?" Arthur frowned.

"I am tied to you until you have made your wishes. You can't transfer wishes to another person. I can't go back in there and I can't have another master as long as you have a wish left." He paused. "Unless you die." He added casually. 

"Okay, so can I wish to… to free you, or something?" Arthur tried.

The boy shrugged. "No one's ever tried. I usually advise against it though. What does that even mean? Being a genie has been my nature for as long as I can remember, and freedom is a very fluid concept. For all I know it would just make me disappear altogether. I'd rather not, if you don't mind. You can wish for a few small things and be done with me, though." He smiled again, slightly bitter this time. "But people never do."

"Why not?" Arthur asked, simultaneously thinking that using up wishes to ask for random material things would be a real waste of magic. He didn't want anything for himself, but on the other hand, just "getting rid" of the wishes did not sit comfortably with him either. If anything was possible, and if you had the power to do some good in the world, or even to improve one person's life, what right did you have to refuse the opportunity? 

"I think you've just answered your own question." The genie said. 

"I… can I think about it?" Arthur breathed out, feeling a bit dizzy.

"It'd be a really shitty deal if you couldn't." The other looked amused again. "There isn't a time limit." He specified. "I'll be around till you make up your mind. You are allowed to ask questions before you actually commit to a wish, as well. I'm a nice genie like that."

"Good." Arthur nodded, trying to feel less overwhelmed. "Good. Okay." He looked at the boy, and there seemed to be only one question to ask for now. "What do I call you?"

The boy smiled. "Merlin."


	2. Chapter 2 (Arthur)

"Arthur. Arthur. Arthur. Arthur, help. Are you just going to ignore me forever? Arthur. Arthuuurrrrrr."

"Oh my god, will you shut up?!" Arthur finally snapped, looking over his shoulder to Merlin, sprawled on the couch like the little shit he was.

His face morphed into a slow grin. "Is that a wish?" 

"No." Arthur grunted. "Why are you being so annoying?"

"I'm bored." Merlin stated. "You're just… working."

Arthur felt like they'd had this conversation several times in the past couple of days, but he bit anyway, rolling his eyes. "I'm sorry, I wasn't aware I needed to give up my job and entertain my genie. Nobody asked you to sit here and watch me."

"You said I could stay here." Merlin retorted. 

"I didn't mean right here in the front room!" Arthur rubbed his face. He wasn't getting any more work done tonight, that was for sure. "Isn't there anything you want to do? Places to see, people to meet?"

At that, Merlin stayed silent. Which Arthur revelled in for a full two seconds before it worried him. He turned fully to Merlin; the boy looked thoughtful, and just a little bit pained. There were moments like that, when he stopped behaving like a petulant teenager, and Arthur remembered he was a genie, and that it must get very, very long and very, very lonely. Arthur did not enjoy those moments. Especially since Merlin had let slip he'd never actually met another genie before, and had refused to expand on that. It made Arthur feel shitty for bringing it up, and every time, like now, one of their arguments ended in the realisation that Merlin wasn't just _there_ to make it his life's mission to pester Arthur, but probably because he had nowhere else to be.

"Alright." He sighed. "We're going out."

Merlin perked up and looked at him. "We are?"

"My friends wanted to meet for drinks. Let's join them."

"Join your friends?" Merlin raised an eyebrow. "How are you going to introduce me?"

Arthur had already thought of that, but he paused to ask: "Would I actually be allowed to say you're a genie?" He wondered. 

"Oh, you do what you want." Merlin said. "But I'll warn you now that I am not a circus monkey."

Arthur snorted. "Meaning?"

"I will not be performing any magic tricks for you and your mates' amusement. So this might end in everyone thinking you're a mental case, or have a rubbish sense of humour." He smiled. "But it's your call."

"I'll say you're a friend from work." Arthur rolled his eyes. 

"Okay." Merlin shrugged. And after a beat: "What is it you do again?"

Arthur rolled his eyes again. “Just say you’re in accounts. Nobody asks a follow-up question when you say you work in accounts.”

In the whirlwind of getting ready to leave, Merlin as excited as a child on Christmas morning, Arthur did not have time to second-guess his decision until it was to late.

As they walked the short way from the tube to the pub, Arthur did is best to convince himself he was only walking slightly ahead because he knew the way, and not because otherwise the struggle to keep his eyes off Merlin's arse would be all too real. He was feeling increasingly nervous. He wasn't an idiot, he knew how this would look to his friends. Ever since Gwaine and Percy had come out as a couple, and the drunken celebrations that had ensued had Arthur confess he was more than a little bi himself, and he had broken up with Elena, he had been teased endlessly every single time he mentioned another man in semi-positive terms, or simple looked their way. So now he was showing up for drinks at the pub with his closest, oldest friends accompanied by "a mate from work"? The blokes Arthur worked with were all wankers, he'd unfortunately mentioned it enough times to make this extremely suspicious. 

And Merlin… hell, he looked hot. He had modernised his clothing again upon being more exposed to the current world, and he was wearing very well-fitted grey jeans, a goddamn purple tartan shirt that somehow _worked_ and a black leather jacket that made him look cool on top of everything. His hair was just long enough to be inviting, and his eyes sparkled blue like nobody's business. Arthur had caught several people staring on their way through London. He'd caught himself staring a few times too. He didn't think Merlin had noticed. He had been quiet, observing his surroundings, which only added to the brooding mysterious hotness vibe he was bringing. Damnit, Arthur would never hear the end of this, however quickly he might use his wishes and have Merlin disappear from his life.

"I should warn you-" Arthur stopped and turned and cursed as Merlin continued walking right into him and he found himself with an armful of hot genie, and really why did he have to be so damn _chiselled_. This was ridiculous. He should never have gone out. He should have left Merlin slouched on his sofa wearing unflattering clothes and being perfectly unattractively irritating. 

"Yes?" Merlin prompted, not bothering to even step back. Arthur had actually noticed before his sense of personal space was a bit off. He pushed him back carefully. 

"My friends will probably assume we're a couple." Arthur mumbled. "Or at least in the early stages of becoming one."

That didn't seem to faze Merlin. "Why?"

"I've never introduced them to someone new who wasn't a girlfriend." He explained. "And I'm single now and you are… well." He cleared his throat. "I can only expect they'll speculate."

"You mean to tell me," Merlin smirked playfully, "that you are not the kind of person who would simply take a workmate out who's new to the city with no ulterior motives?"

"Not according to my friends I'm not." Arthur frowned, feeling affronted now he thought about it. "See, Gwen would definitely get away with that, but they'll think _I_ am a selfish prat."

Merlin laughed, and Arthur couldn't help but smile stupidly at the sight. "They seem nice." 

"Anyway, I just… wanted to give you the heads up. I hope it doesn't make you uncomfortable, or, I mean, maybe this is a bad idea, if you want to not do this and just…"

"Arthur." Merlin interrupted him. "Relax. I can handle myself and I can handle whatever assumptions and speculations people have in stock for me, trust me, I'll have heard it before. I've been through shit eras and met some shit people, and the rest of the time, I live alone in a void inside a bottle. This is fun."

Arthur breathed out. “Okay.”

“Okay.” Merlin repeated. “Can we go have that drink you promised me now?”

Arthur nodded, and they carried on walking. Arthur most definitely kept his eyes off Merlin’s arse this time. Most definitely.

Arthur had not planned to make an entrance, sadly they arrived after everyone else, and of course they would have chosen the booth around the corner, where you had no choice but to _emerge_ in front of the group. All conversations stopped as five pairs of eyes turned to them. 

"Hi guys." Arthur tried to sound casual, his voice a bit breathy to his own ears. "This is Merlin." He gestured towards him.

Not wanting to deal with the questions and speculations ahead of time, he'd not mentioned he was bringing him. He knew he'd get hell for that, but the shock on everyone's face was almost worth it. "He's just started in my team at work and he doesn't know anyone in London, so I suggested he tag along."

"Hope that's alright." Merlin added with what looked like a nervous smile.

It was the right thing to do, as everyone now felt like they had to fall over themselves to make him feel welcome. 

"Of course!" Gwen hurried to scoot down the seat to give them space to sit. "It's lovely to meet you, I'm Gwen."

"Lance." Her husband followed, giving Merlin his hand to shake over the table.

"Nice to meet you." Merlin assured.

"This is Leon, Gwaine and Percy." Arthur went round as Merlin nodded at each of them. "You guys alright for drinks?"

Gwen, Lance and Leon gestured at their pints, Percy got up - Arthur caught Merlin looking slightly startled at the size of him.

"We just got here, I was about to head to the bar, I'll get yours. Guinness as usual?" Arthur nodded. "What are you having… was it Marlon?"

"Like Marlon Brando?" Gwen probed.

"Merlin." Merlin corrected.

"Like the bird." Gwaine provided. "Really?"

"Really."

"That can't be easy to live with." Gwaine carried on, even as Leon kicked him under the table.

"See, I used to think that too." Merlin said in a falsely conspiratorial tone. "And then I met a girl named _Cobra_ , and I figured I've not got it that bad."

Everyone laughed, and just like that, Merlin was accepted.

It was only after an hour or so Arthur realised just how much - none of his friends had made an insinuation of any kind regarding their relationship (or lack thereof). They had taken Merlin in as an individual, accepting that however he had come to be here, he was a new friend and it was worthwhile trying to get to know him. Arthur admired that, and the easy way Merlin answered their questions - he wondered just how much of it was complete fiction - and laughed with them. Envied it a little, maybe. In spite of the easy banter he was exchanging now with Merlin like he'd known him for years, he didn't think he was generally very good at making new friends. 

Of course, it was just as Arthur was thinking it that Merlin excused himself to go to the loo - which was probably only to keep up appearances, because Arthur had never once seen him use the bathroom in the two days he'd spent at his place so far - and everyone else in the group started talking at the same time as soon as he was out of earshot.

"Oh my god Arthur" "What the hell mate" "When did you meet" "Why didn't you tell us sooner" "Where did he come from" "He is so nice" "Can you cope with his sense of humour seeing as you have none" "Are you going to ask him out?" " _Did_ you ask him out" "Maybe he's out of your league" "This is certainly a major improvement from Sofia" "Do not mess this up Arthur" 

"Wow, guys!" Arthur finally managed to interrupt the flow, cringing. "You are all insane, you know that?"

They all just looked at him. Arthur sighed. "Merlin is a colleague and he doesn't know anyone here. I'm doing the nice thing because everyone else in the office is a prick. This is not a date."

Gwaine sighed. "Then my friend, you are more of an idiot that I ever thought you were."

"Oy." Arthur protested, while everyone else nodded, the bloody traitors.

"He's smart." Gwaine started raising fingers. "He's single, I asked. He's funny. He's _hot_. And he looks at you like he expects the word of God to come out of your mouth."

Or three wishes, Arthur thought uncomfortably. And then what?

"I have to agree with Gwaine." Leon chipped in. "You certainly look like you enjoy his company as well."

"Arthur." Gwen continued, taking his hand, gently. "We've been a little worried about you. This is good."

"Worried." Arthur scoffed. "I've been fine!" 

Sure, at his last birthday he had turned older than his mother would ever be, and that had freaked him out a little. Sure, he and Elena had broken up after a relationship of five years in which they even discussed getting married, before deciding that while they liked each other a great deal, they both felt like it would be settling, like there was something - someone - else for them out there. It had been very mature. Sure, his destructive fling with Sofia had been a lot less mature. Sure, he had thrown himself into work at his father's firm, even if he hated most of it, and all his colleagues were the kind of arses he was particularly afraid of because he could see himself at risk of becoming just like them, dismissive and entitled, like they were better than others. Sure, he hadn't spoken to his father in months.

Bur really, he'd been fine. Considering. 

Merlin coming back to the table stopped Gwen from answering, but as they all started chatting again, and Merlin and Percy teamed up to tease Arthur about how he sorted his books alphabetically, and Arthur - while defending this was a perfectly sensible way to sort books and why would anyone want them to be all in a random mess - couldn't help but laugh at the twinkle in Merlin's eyes even as he was arguing his case, he caught Gwen's smile from the corner of his eye. _You're an idiot, but you'll be alright._

Several hours later, Arthur wasn't drunk, he really wasn't, but that didn't stop him from almost faceplanting into his flat as they stumbled in with their Chinese food. He honestly hadn't had enough to drink to be drunk - he was just laughing so hard at Merlin's story that he could barely stand up. Something to do with a nobleman, cross dressing and a duel. There was a bit about a horse too, and Arthur had completely lost track of how it fitted in there. He hadn’t laughed this hard in… he wasn’t sure he had ever laughed this hard.

“And I’m pretty sure this is how sunglasses were invented.” Merlin was finishing, not in as much of a state of uncontrollable hilarity as Arthur was, but an amused smile dancing on his lips nonetheless. 

“Oh my god, I can’t breathe.” Arthur said as he was, paradoxically, finally managing to get his breathing under control. He wiped tears from his eyes, his abs were hurting, but he gradually calmed down, only chuckling to himself occasionally as he pottered about with plates and cutlery for their food, while Merlin settled himself back on the sofa - he seemed to like the leftmost spot, elbows on the armrest and his legs folded up to his chest.

“Want another drink?” He suggested as he handed Merlin his bowl of lemon chicken noodles.

“Sure.” Merlin said. “Hang on, this one’s on me.”

And with that, he conjured two pints of Guinness from thin air, and Arthur remembered that _yeah, fuck_ , he was a genie, and he was not a mate from work, and this was not a date.

“Unless you wanted something different?” Merlin queried, misinterpreting Arthur’s stillness.

“No.” Arthur shook himself. “This is perfect. Thank you.”

“Thank you, actually.” Merlin said. “For taking me out. I had fun.”

"Yeah, same here." Arthur shrugged, not wanting this to be a big deal. "No hardship."

"It was nice being treated like a human being. I've missed that."

Arthur frowned at him, and opened his mouth to comment on that, before deciding against it. He didn't want to pry, even if he was curious about Merlin's life. He had been visibly uncomfortable discussing most things pertaining to his previous masters, his immortality or the extent of his powers, and Arthur knew he had to respect that. Merlin gave him a little smile, like he knew exactly what had just gone through his mind.

"They're wrong, you know." He commented.

"What?" Arthur startled. "Who, this lot? Wrong about what?"

"You're not a selfish prat."

Arthur laughed, a little embarrassed. "Thanks. I don't think they actually think that though. They're alright."

They spent the next hour eating and laughing, Arthur sharing stories from school and Uni and the various shenanigans they had all gotten up to, Merlin giving out snippets of past anecdotes that were, Arthur thought deliberately, stripped of temporal or spatial context. They were just moving on to talking about camping when Arthur's phone rang. Given that it was almost midnight, there really was only one person this could be, and Arthur apologised to Merlin before he picked up with a sigh.

"Morgana. You alright?"

"Hey." Morgana spoke softly, and Arthur knew this was a Bad Day. There were times she called him with a random idea, wired and demanding and easier to dismiss as annoying, but the other times, when she was quiet and subdued and didn't seem to want anything but to hear his voice, these times Arthur could not find it in himself to not listen. "Were you sleeping?" She asked.

"No, I was out, I just came home." Arthur reassured her, only slightly lying. He glanced over to Merlin, who was simply watching him patiently. He didn't ask her if she was okay, she never gave a straight answer anyway. He just had to figure it out by himself from how she sounded.

"I had a dream." She said. "There was fire."

Not okay, Arthur surmised. He knew better, by now, than to ask about the dream. She was calling to forget about it. 

"I saw Gwen tonight." He told her. "She said she ran into Isolde, she's back with Tristan apparently, _again_. Clear your schedule for G&Ts when that turns into a disaster. Again."

His effort was rewarded by a small chuckle. Isolde wasn't always good for Morgana, her harshness was sometimes too much to handle, but at least when she called upon her friends to go and get drunk after an umpteenth breakup, she wasn't telling Morgana to go see someone and get her bipolar disorder diagnosed already.

Arthur talked for a bit longer, telling her about his evening and catching her up on how everyone was doing. Minus Merlin. He didn't mention Merlin. It just felt odd to tell her a lie when she didn't really need an explanation, if she didn't know about him in the first place. If it came up… well he supposed he'd cross that bridge if he ever got to it. 

"I'm glad I called." She said eventually.

"I'm glad I picked up." He answered, as part of their ritual. It had started years ago, after they'd had a fight so out of proportions they had been on the verge of never speaking to each other again, and one desperate bid of a phone call had tipped the balance favourably. 

"Night, Arthur." Morgana bid him. "I'll see you soon."

"Take care." Arthur said before he hung up. He let out a breath, and conscious of Merlin who hadn't moved, who had watched him the whole time, forced out a tense smile. "My sister." He told him. 

"Is she okay?" Merlin asked in a tone that, somehow, conveyed that it would be completely okay not to answer.

"Yeah." Arthur sighed. "She just gets a bit anxious sometimes."

Merlin's gaze was still on him, kind but focused. "Are _you_ okay?" He probed. 

Arthur stayed silent for a while. He thought of the nights he would have to be on the phone to Morgana for hours while she barely spoke, her choked breaths coming through and Arthur unable to do anything but stay on the line, given how her voice rose in hysteria claiming she was fine every time he tried to say he was going to come over. He thought of the days when she was so in control, so confident and amazing that he could only think, _This woman will rule the world._ He thought of how she was the only family he cared about, aside from his rocky relationship with his father, and that he didn't know sometimes if she needed him, or if he needed her. He thought he'd never really talked about all this with anyone, but he wanted to share it all with this boy in front of him he'd known for less than three days.

"Merlin…" He rubbed at his face. "Is this normal?"

"What is?" Merlin frowned.

"This." Arthur gestured between them. "I feel like we're… becoming friends."

"There's no rule against that." Merlin said, though he sounded a little wary now, like he'd been caught doing something he knew was arguable. 

"But you'll leave." Arthur said, and maybe it was the late night atmosphere, maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was crashing down from the adrenaline of a weekend that has started with discovering a _goddamn genie in a bottle_ on what had previously been a normal Friday night and inviting him to stay over, but he felt raw and honest and pained at the thought. "Eventually, I'll make my wishes and you'll disappear and I'll never see you again."

"Yes." Merlin answered quietly. "But I'm sure you've lost touch with some of your friends before."

"Not like this." Arthur argued. He looked up at him, and he was struck once again by the blue of Merlin's eyes staring back. "Because you… you just appeared and you're literally just here for me, there's nobody else you know, and it means I'm responsible for you but you're so, so out of my reach and unfathomable and _unique_ , and you don't expect anything from me, you don't judge me, you are just you and I can be myself with you, and you make me laugh like, like life is light and brilliant, and you're beautiful and it's _confusing_ and I can't feel so comfortable with you when I've just met you because when you leave I don't know what-"

He was rambling, he realised that when he had to stop suddenly because Merlin had moved to his side and his hand was on his mouth, the other cupping his jaw as if the hold could stabilise him and stop him unravelling.

"Hey, hey." Merlin was saying as he physically stopped his babble. "You're spiralling. Calm down."

Arthur released a shaky breath and Merlin's hand left his mouth, but the other stayed on the side of his face, grounding him. "It's okay." Merlin continued in a placating tone. "It's never an easy relationship to have. Your entire view of the world got shifted. Feeling weird and confused about me is only natural. Some masters decide to treat me like a servant, others like a mighty being, others like a friend. It's all okay. I'm not going anywhere until you want me to, until you've wished your last wish, and then we'll part. I'll say goodbye. It'll be okay."

Arthur, incongruously, remembered the football team he wanted to join when he was seven, when they'd gone to live in Paris for his father's business. Uther had sneered and told him it was pointless, since they would be moving back to London the next year. Morgana had convinced him to try out anyway. _Knowing something is going to end is not a good reason to not even start it._ It had hurt to have to leave, but he'd never regretted going for it and creating those memories.

So he went for it. He leaned in, and pressed his lips to Merlin's. There was a startled intake of breath, but the fingers on his neck tightened slightly, and then Merlin was kissing back. He was kissing back, and it didn't matter anymore, that this might not last, because it was worth it already. It felt perfect, unlike anyone Arthur had kissed before; not Elena, just this side of something missing, not Sofia, as perfunctory as a rebound needed to be, certainly not Valiant, when Arthur had first realised he also liked men, though not that man, especially after he'd proclaimed he was going to make Arthur his bitch. Merlin felt _right_.

Or so he did for another three seconds before Arthur's brain went back into overdrive and he started second-guessing himself again. 

"I'm sorry." Arthur blurted out as he pulled back. "I shouldn't have… I should have asked."

Merlin smiled, still too close to him, but then that had never bothered him. "I'd have said yes." He told him.

Arthur huffed. Now doubt had planted its seed, it was nagging. Surely he had overstepped some kind of boundary. It was one thing wanting to make the most of what he could get in the moment, but he didn't know what Merlin wanted. "I didn't mean to… not give you the choice." Arthur mumbled.

"I did have a choice." Merlin retorted. "Don't think I wouldn't have bashed your face in if that wasn't the case." He added with something serious in his eyes. "I see where your mind is going here. I'm not bound to do anything you want outside of your wishes, just so we're clear. Okay?"

Arthur nodded, unable to look away. Apparently Merlin was even hotter when he put his foot down. "Okay." He breathed.

"Good. Are you going to kiss me again then, or what?"


	3. Chapter 3 (Merlin)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have had the worst week at work, sorry for the delay! I'll try to upload all the remaining chapters over the weekend :)

Merlin thought he'd had every kind of relationship he could possibly have with a master. There were the kind and the cruel. The demanding and the indecisive. Some had treated him like a dog. Some had worshipped him. Some had been afraid. Some had been indifferent, only seeing him as an asset in the bank. One man had simply wished him to _leave_ _him alone_ and Merlin had had to wait till he died to be released. One man had simply asked him to _stay_ and keep him company in his old years. Some had been his friends. He'd been to bed with a few of them as well, it hadn’t been that weird. He'd spent as short as seven minutes, and as long as sixty-one years with the same master. He'd been loved and cherished, he'd been mistreated and abused. He thought he'd seen it all.

And then Arthur happened. Arthur who had looked at him bewildered, and then rationalised him. Arthur who had refused his services, and then offered him to stay in his home. Arthur who had been so easy to rile up, and then had invited him to meet his friends instead of trying to escape his presence. Arthur who was confident and just a little bit arrogant, and yet had no idea how kind and _good_ he really was. Arthur who had kissed him, and then freaked out, and then kissed him again. Like he was real. Like he had human feelings that mattered. Like they were equals. Merlin didn't think that had ever happened. Even the masters who had been kind, friendly, seeking his advice, they always gave him casual orders like he just had to follow them around, or spoke with a distance showing they couldn't quite figure him out, a wariness at his _otherness_ that never quite went away. Arthur was the first, the only one who seemed to almost forget about it, who just acted as if thinking _This genie business aside, you're a guy I want to know._ Merlin didn't tend to believe in fate - not when it felt like he could twist it with a thought - but to find someone like that and just _fit_ , after hundreds of years and dozens of masters, out of all the countries and billions of people in the world… it was so unlikely, it seemed destined. 

He even found himself talking to him, sharing things he usually avoided being honest about, when after kissing and kissing again, Arthur drew back and said: "I want to do this right."

"I don't think you're doing it wrong." Merlin couldn't help himself.

Arthur rolled his eyes. "Not this part, smartass. I want to get to know you."

"This could take a while." Merlin quipped again.

Arthur had that look on his face again like he didn't want to be nosy, which Merlin really appreciated for its rarity, but this time he did ask. "How long?"

Merlin had another wisecracking reply on the tip of his tongue, but Arthur looked nervous enough that Merlin knew that, if he defused this, Arthur wouldn't ask again. And somehow, he felt he had earned this.

"I don't remember… starting." He explained quietly. "Like in a dream, you know? Suddenly you're in it, and you can't remember how you got there. But… I mean, at the time London was more Danish than English. So… I'm not sure, a thousand years? Give or take. Time-keeping was a bit hazy along the way, and then they went and switched to the Gregorian calendar halfway through."

Arthur had gone a bit pale. Merlin didn't blame him. Even when his first recollection of being alive had dated back to a hundred years, his masters had been weird about it. So a thousand… It was simply not a time scale the human mind was used to contending with, not when it came to living beings. 

"It must be lonely." Arthur said quietly.

"It is." Merlin answered, his throat a little tight. Nobody ever realised that. Most didn't even think twice about it, considering it part and parcel of being magical, or they thought it must be fantastic to have seen so much of the world throughout the eras. Arthur was the exception, again.

"And you… you said you never met another genie? Is that true?" Arthur asked, looking like the thought was making him a bit sick.

Part of Merlin wanted to shut down this conversation, maybe distract Arthur by kissing him again, but he knew the painful subjects wouldn't go away just because he refused to talk about them now. Might as well get them out of the way.

"I met other supernatural people." Merlin skirted around it a little. "Leprechauns, who are evil little shits, but they're not around much anymore. I went to try and find Djinns in the Middle East, but only found stories. Mermaids are a thing, too, but they've become very shy as well, in modern times. I think most magical beings have. Humans don't believe as much as they used to."

"So no one like you?" Arthur looked a bit distressed. "It must be… I mean, how do you know you're not the only one?"

Merlin shot him a pained smile. "I don't." He confessed. "Legends have been around forever, but Djinns possessing people is a bit different to what I do. The three wishes, the limitations, the consequences… I found that out through trial and error the first few years. These stories, the sort of 'modern genie lore', I don't think they existed when I first came around. For all I know, they all stem from me."

Merlin had barely gotten the words out that Arthur was hugging him, fiercely. Words were failing him, but Merlin didn't need them to get their meaning, and to feel the same. After a thousand years, for the first time in the life he remembered, Merlin was not alone. The feeling kept a smile on his face until they went to bed.

The first two nights he'd spent at Arthur's, Merlin hadn't slept. He didn't really need to, and this was a brand new world, he just wanted to see it. He'd quickly worked out the last time he had been out of the bottle was 37 years back, and that had been such a short stay, he wasn't sure it even counted. Last time he'd really explored was with a master in 1905 who wanted to honour the death of his beloved author Jules Verne by going around the world in 80 days. They had travelled for 6 years. Mostly by human means, though Merlin's magic had helped sometimes. One of the main wishes had been for his master to be able to see the past, like a film presentation superimposed on the places he visited. It had made him a great historian. It had also made him a little bit insane. It was one thing to learn about history, and the errors humanity had made along the way, and another to see it. But all in all, they'd had a blast.

Merlin wasn't sorry he'd missed most of the twentieth century after that. He shuddered to think what kind of wishes he'd have had to grant during the two great wars, and how disastrous things could have turned out if his power had fallen into the wrong hands. In the right hands, maybe he could have helped. But he was glad he didn't have to be made to take that chance. When he'd reappeared in the old possessions of the long dead explorer-historian's family, the world had moved on.

And how it had moved on! Merlin had gone onto Arthur's computer and discovered the Internet, which was a weird, wonderful, scary and infinite place. He'd zapped himself to a few of the countries he'd been to before, just to see how they had changed - a _lot_. He'd read several books on Arthur's shelf, and another few when visiting shops - shops, these were very different now. And they were everywhere. Film had come a long way too, and Merlin had quite enjoyed sneaking into a 3D IMAX cinema.

Anyway, he'd been busy. Next on his list would have been to browse Netflix or YouTube, in any order, but when Arthur asked him if he wanted to come sleep in his bed - just sleep, he'd insisted with an adorable little frown, and Merlin knew how conscious he was of boundaries - he could only follow. So for the first night since he'd been out this time, wrapped up in Arthur's arms, he slept.

The dream started quietly. He was walking in a forest that looked familiar, in a comforting way, without demanding to be named. The air was crisp, like it was just about to snow. He could hear men laughing, though he could not see them. He was walking with a purpose. He was looking for something. Someone. 

_"Merlin."_

A female voice had called his name. He turned around, the way he had just came, and a tall, dark-haired woman was standing there. She looked scared.

_"It's the only way."_ He heard himself say. 

_"Think about it."_

_"I have. I can save him - them. All of them. I can save you."_

The woman opened her mouth again but it was not her voice that came out. A rough, rugged, angry call. _MERLIN!_ Her eyes became white, glossy. Her lips turned blue, then black, her mouth open in a scream that wasn't hers. _MERLIN!_ There was blood coming out of her mouth, her eyes. A black trickle, that Merlin knew would be poison if it touched him. Everything around him was dark and he had to go, he had to go now, there was no time, this was the only way, and she was dead, but he could save her, he could save them all, he had to, he didn't have as choice, it was the only way, there was no time-

"Merlin!"

He woke up in a cold sweat, his heart pounding, his throat tight, feeling like he had just escaped the grasp of hands, of _claws_ that wanted to hurt him, stop him, kill him. He scrambled out of bed, out of the grasp, realising belatedly it was Arthur's, and that his hands weren't claws and didn't want to harm, he was safe. 

"Merlin?"

Arthur spoke his name like he was real, and that more than anything got Merlin out of the dream, helped the sick feeling relent, helped him stop shaking. Without really thinking, he stepped back onto the bed, into Arthur's arms, and let himself be held, let him stroke his hair and whisper he was okay. 

"What happened?" Arthur asked softly after a few minutes of rubbing soothing circles on his back.

"Bad dream." Merlin supplied, noncommittal. It didn't even begin to describe the feeling of impending doom he has just experienced. 

"Does it happen a lot?" 

"No." Merlin breathed. In fact, he did not remember ever dreaming. If he had, it certainly hadn't been this horror show. 

"Want to talk about it?" Arthur asked. Merlin recognised the tone. It was the same Arthur had used when he'd spoken to his sister on the phone. It was a solid voice that was there for you, but still concerned. It was help offered and available, but not pushed on you. It was love and acceptance, whatever the answer was.

"No." Merlin's answer was. Arthur held him a little closer, but he said nothing. For a while. When he spoke, it was with a little chuckle. 

"This should be so much weirder than it is." He said. "You literally appeared out of nowhere two days ago. We have barely started to scratch the surface getting to know each other. But somehow I… I don’t know. All I know is this doesn't feel weird."

Merlin smiled again his chest. "Maybe this is where I belonged all along."

A shudder went through him as he said the words. They echoed, like the sound was coming from around them as well as from his mouth. For a split second, he was _sure_ he had said those words before. 

_Somehow this doesn't feel weird._ Arthur's voice echoed as well. He knew it was Arthur's. But was it quite this Arthur?

_Maybe this is where I belong._

_You have been all the way over there for so long, yet somehow this doesn't feel weird._

_Maybe this is where I've always belonged._

"Merlin?"

He blinked, the present coming back into focus. Arthur was looking at him carefully, clearly worried.

"Where did you go?"

"I'm not sure." Merlin said truthfully. "I had a bit of déjà vu." He gave him a serious look, trying to see past the here and now of his handsome face. It was like trying to grasp at smoke, like trying to remember a dream. "There's something about you, Arthur Pendragon."

Arthur froze. One second he was a warm, comforting hold around Merlin, the next he was stiff and wary.

"Is that a genie thing?" He asked.

"What is?"

"I never told you my last name." Arthur said accusingly, sounding almost hurt.

"Haven't you?" Merlin frowned. Surely he had. Merlin did not read minds. He was not all-knowing. That wasn't a thing.

"No, I haven't." Arthur maintained.

"It's not a genie thing." Merlin shook his head. "I've probably seen it somewhere." He looked around, as if there would be a sign or a label on one of Arthur's things claiming _PROPERTY OF A. PENDRAGON_ , something he could point at and go 'Ah-ha!'. He didn't see anything. Arthur still looked suspicious and a little betrayed. “Magic doesn’t work that way.” Merlin assured him. “Not mine, at any rate.”

“You must have heard one of my friends say it.” Arthur supposed, relaxing again. Logic calmed him, Merlin had noticed. He was much more wary of things he could not make sense of, explain or solve. It actually amazed him how well he was dealing with his presence, considering. There was only so much sense you could make of someone who popped out of a bottle, did magic and claimed to have been around for a thousand years.

“Must have.” Merlin repeated. He didn’t remember any of them doing so, and he had a _very good_ memory, but he didn’t say as much to Arthur. Things had been getting weird enough as it was, in the past half hour or so. “I should let you go back to sleep.” Merlin said, standing up again. He didn’t think he was going to get any more sleep himself, and he didn’t really want to if he was honest, and risk slipping back into that nightmare. But Arthur needed to be up in three hours and at work in four. 

"Are you getting up?" Arthur asked. 

He didn't seem to particularly want him to stay, not as he had earlier, so Merlin nodded. "I don't physically need to sleep. You on the other hand, need rest. Sorry for waking you."

"Don't be daft." Arthur shrugged him off. "Are you staying in?"

"Yeah." Merlin said. He had no desire to go wandering on his own in the middle of the night, as respectable a part of London as Arthur lived in. "I'll read or watch something."

"Good." Arthur said, and leaned in to plant a kiss on his lips. "I'll let see you in the morning."

"I'll be around." Merlin confirmed awkwardly. 

He made for the door, feeling a little guilty that he was relieved Arthur didn't want him to stay. He could read in Arthur's face he felt a little guilty for not asking him to stay, too. So he gave him a big grin and a goofy thumbs up, and Arthur laughed, and Merlin realised he really liked that sound.

He left the room with a little sigh. What _was it_ about Arthur's? He'd never cared all that much about his masters' happiness, not as long as their mood did not make his life hell, and certainly not this soon. These were always people he'd end up leaving - he had to make a point of not getting too attached. Of course he had ended up being close to some of them and genuinely concerned for their well-being, but that had been the long-haul ones. What the hell was he doing after two and a half days, bantering with Arthur like they'd known each other for years, kissing him, sleeping in his bed and feeling like it was important to make him smile? Arthur had told him from the start he didn't even want a genie. He would get rid of him as soon as he'd found three suitably ethical and honourable wishes. 

Though he'd kissed him first, a little voice in the back of Merlin's head said. Maybe his attitude had changed a bit since their first conversation. Maybe he'd keep him around. Either way, it couldn't be forever, could it. At one point or other, it would hurt. But even knowing that, Merlin didn't know if he had the strength to deny himself a little human warmth, for as long as it could last.

He still felt unsettled by his dream, but he didn't want to think about it, so instead he tried to find an answer to the other unsettling question of the night: where had he got _Pendragon_ from? He picked up and opened some of Arthur's books, but while some had _Arthur P._ scribbled inside the cover, he couldn’t find any with the full name.

He let out a frustrated growl, slicing through the soft silence of the room. Arthur's flat was spacious, but still cosy. Merlin felt comfortable here. Why did he have to feel _comfortable_? He had been good at compartmentalising with his masters in the past few centuries, knowing it was only temporary and always mentally prepared to return "home" to his bottle. But he _liked it_ here. He wanted to stay and eat Chinese food and make Arthur laugh with his stories and go on a date and get to know him. It was ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. He was a most ancient and most magical genie. He did not develop _crushes_ on newly-met masters. He didn't know how to get himself out of this weird mess. But he was going to have to before he lost his sanity.


	4. Chapter 4 (Arthur)

Merlin had been acting strange all evening. That is, stranger than usual. It still alarmed him a little to have a sense of what was usual of someone he'd met days ago, but he'd decided to roll with it. Merlin was special.

Merlin, annoyingly, had started making suggestions about what Arthur should wish for. Arthur wasn't sure what he had been up to all day while himself was in the office, but since he'd been back (and he was very much _not_ thinking about how it had felt to come _home_ to Merlin waiting for him), it had just been weird. Arthur set out to make dinner, Merlin hovering around him in the kitchen, the both of them easily chatting much like the previous evenings they had spent together in this new imposed, not-as-awkward-as-it-should-be proximity. Except… Every time Arthur made a comment even as innocuous as "Accounting reports are the worst", Merlin would say something like "You could wish you didn't have to read a report ever again". At first Arthur thought he was joking, but with every one of these suggestions, Merlin's face did something more and more… complicated. Like he thought he was meant to have good feelings about this, and instead was expecting to be betrayed and hurt, but somehow that wasn't something he would be trying to prevent.

When it got as ridiculous as, Arthur having just had a short fight with a tin of chopped tomatoes, "You could wish for the best tin-opener in the world", Arthur set everything down, crossed his arms and faced Merlin square.

"What is this?" He challenged.

Merlin looked up at him, sheepish and not altogether innocent. “What is what?”

“This. These suggestions. Why are you so eager for me to make my wishes?” Arthur suddenly had a horrible thought, one that would actually be a very good reason for Merlin, who had _nowhere else to go_ , to be this awkward with him. “Is it… Is it because of last night? Because we kissed and I said I wanted to take you on a date and asked you to stay in my bed? I made you uncomfortable.” Arthur concluded before Merlin could speak to confirm or disprove the assumption. “I made you uncomfortable, but you’re stuck here, so now you can’t wait to get rid of me.”

“Get rid of… My world, Arthur!” Merlin blinked at him, bemused. “Why would you believe that? Who _wouldn’t_ want you? I’m the one people get rid of.”

“I’m not about to get rid of you.” Arthur bit back, outraged at the suggestion. “I thought we’d established that.”

“But you will.” Merlin said painfully. “Eventually you’ll figure out what you want, and make your wishes, and I’ll have to go.”

It was turning into a weird, inverted version of their conversation from the night before, and the _déjà vu_ was not pleasant.

“What if I don’t? Arthur challenged - while part of him screamed _What are you even saying, you idiot, you met him on Friday, you don’t know anything about him, he’s not even human!_

“I’m a genie!” Merlin cried, echoing that same thought. “I do magic, I only eat or sleep if I’ve got nothing better to do, and I have been around since before Britain was even united. You can’t be that oblivious and pretend I’m just your standard-issue boyfriend.”

Arthur felt a little thrill at the word, had a flash of how great it would feel to go around introducing Merlin as his boyfriend, but he forced himself to push it down. This was a serious conversation and now was not the time.

“You must have had serious relationships with other people before.” Arthur said, half wishing it to be true, half with a possessive twang of jealousy that Merlin could have been someone else’s partner before. “You must have stayed out longer than three days without forcing your… master to make their wishes.” The term still didn’t sit well with him.

“Not even close. You’re different.” Merlin said softly, thoughtfully. “And I don’t understand it either. But I like you. I mean this honestly, very simply, I _like_ you. Not in the way I’ve thought before, _This master’s alright, they’re not making me do horrible things and I quite enjoy their company_ , or _People like this restore my faith in humanity_. I just… like you. Uncomplicatedly. Like we’re not two different bloody species, like it’s completely normal and I can just like you, as a person.”

“I like you too.” Was all Arthur could think to say, his voice slightly strangled, because though Merlin looked like he was freaking out now and it was a little contagious, he’d just said he liked him about four times, and Arthur couldn’t help a bubbly feeling from settling in his stomach. Again. _You’re not fifteen_ , he mentally chastised himself.

“It isn’t normal.” Merlin shook his head. “I know, I said yesterday there was no rule against us becoming friends, but this is a little beyond that. I feel like we are discovering this connection between us, rather than building it, and there was that dream, and I knew your name like I’d always known it, and I _don’t, understand_.” He finished, clearly frustrated. 

"Does it matter?" Arthur said, surprising himself, because he hadn't planned on saying that, but also because it was _tru_ e, and probably for the first time in his life, he didn't care why and how these things were happening, because Merlin was a gift and he'd be damned if he let anything ruin it. "Do we have to understand? Right now. Does it really matter?"

He stepped up to Merlin, taking his face into his hands, fitting so comfortably into each other's space. "Right now." He repeated in a whisper. "Can I just kiss you, and make you forget about how things might end, by _starting_ them instead? We know one thing for sure, don't we?"

"What is that?" Merlin asked. There was no more frustration in his voice, no more bitterness; he leaned into the touch of Arthur's hand like it had the power to appease all his internal turmoil, and like he wanted to stay there forever.

"We both want this." Arthur said, leaning closer again and kissing Merlin's lips. "This feels right. Does it matter how we got there as long as this is where we want to be?"

"Ultimately, it does." Merlin said with a pout. "I have very powerful magic and I like to be confident I'm not at risk of breaking the world. But you do make a compelling argument for _right now_."

Arthur stepped back just a little, his conscience piping up. "Were you ever at risk of breaking the world?" He asked, just to check.

Merlin snorted. "No." He admitted. "Not that I know of. But then there's a first time for everything. Like I said, this isn't exactly another Tuesday for me."

"It's Monday." Arthur retorted on instinct, and proceeded to feel immediately stupid. 

"I know." Merlin replied seriously. "The Internet seems to have a thing about Tuesdays. I'm trying to blend in."

Arthur laughed, and kissed him again. "Please don't."

Merlin smirked, but then he sighed. “Alright then. Let’s do this for now.”

Somehow, in the conversation that ensued, they went from _Let’s be boyfriends_ to Merlin getting his own place. It has been his call, but part of Arthur was grateful the decision had been made for him.

It wasn't that he didn't want Merlin near all day long. He very much did want Merlin near all day long, and all of the night too if he could help it. But he did want to do this right, and not start a relationship based solely on the fact that a random visit to the antique shop and a bit of magic had plonked them on top of each other. Even though they had pretty much clicked immediately - or, as Gwen would put it, fell for each other like a ton of bricks -, Arthur did not want to take Merlin for granted. The genie-master thing wasn't going away as much as Arthur didn't plan to make any wishes at this point, and he didn't want Merlin to feel like he couldn't just leave if he had enough of him, even though he couldn't _leave_ leave, what with not being able to go back in the bottle and all that. Arthur was adamant Merlin maintained all of the free will he possibly could.

This being said, he wasn't entirely sure how he felt about Merlin magicking himself into a flat, but he decided to trust him when he said the landlord was a company who owned dozens of flats, overcharged their tenants, didn't recycle and wouldn't miss a few hundred pounds a month.

Either way, Merlin had started "renting" his flat so by the time - two days later - they went on their official first date (street food and a walk along Southbank, chatting and people-watching), Arthur walked him home and kissed him on his doorstep and it was _perfect_. Sure, part of him felt like it was a bit of a downgrade from having him in his bed before, but then he remembered Merlin being bored out of his mind and really annoying the first few days, he remembered the nightmare, he remembered all the second-guessing on both their parts when their relationship had changed, much too quickly though he wouldn’t trade it for the world, and he knew their needed to take it a bit slower if they didn't want it to crash and burn faster than it had started.

Arthur had barely slept after leaving Merlin the night before, taking much too long to come down from the high, and he was downright distracted at work, between thinking of Merlin and texting Merlin - he'd magicked himself a phone too. It was a good kind of distracted. Arthur felt like he could do anything, with this new strength Merlin gave him. He could make a difference, achieve things that mattered. He felt like he had finally found himself, unlocked his potential, open the door to the person he was really meant to be - all those trite motivational clichés he usually scoffed at. Merlin was the best thing that had happened to him in a long time, and it had nothing to do with magic. Well, almost nothing. Magic was part of it, it was part of Merlin - everything was a little bit magic.

"You're in a good mood." One of Arthur's colleagues called at him over his desk. One of Cenred's team whose name Arthur didn't care to learn. They were all interchangeably selfish, arrogant and uninteresting. Great for business, no doubt. But Arthur had very little time for their macho act. Didn't stop them from trying to engage with him. Being the CEO's son made him worth sucking up to, even if he hadn't been management and also _very good_ at his job.

"Is that the report I needed yesterday?" Arthur threw back, refusing to go through the motions. He doubted the guy would be impressed by the honest answer of _Why yes, I believe I am falling in love with an impossible man, it is rather uplifting_.

"Cendred reviewed it." The other answered, as if that was an excuse.

"I'm sure he has." Arthur smiled joylessly. But, because he _was_ in a good mood, he added: "Thank you. Hope your day's going alright."

There was an answer before his office was empty again, but Arthur didn't hear it, because his phone had lit up with a text again and Merlin's messages were too funny to ignore. They had agreed to take a one day break to catch their breath, but Merlin had volunteered to cook for them in his flat on the Friday night, and the retelling of his adventures in Tesco had been hilarious.

The text wasn't from Merlin - no doubt was he still fighting with the self-checkout - but from Gwen, on their WhatsApp group.

**_Gwen:_** _I know we've seen your ugly mugs just last Sunday but Lance is going to Sri Lanka._

Arthur blinked at it. He what? Before he could decide if it he should ask for details or if that was probably a weird prank - odd coming from Gwen too, but she did have a mischievous streak - another message came through. 

**_Lance:_** 😧 _when you let your wife text your mates_

**_Gwen:_ ** _Excuse me sir most of them were my mates first_

**_Gwaine:_** _Save this for the bedroom_ 😲🍆

**_Leon:_ ** _Was that a veiled invitation to go for a pint because I'm in_

**_Percy:_ ** _What did we say about the aubergine emoji Gwaine_

**_Gwaine:_ ** **🍆🍆**

Clearly nobody was working. Not that Arthur had a leg to stand on.

**_Arthur:_ ** _Are we not going to talk about the Sri Lanka thing?_

**_Lance_ ** _is typing…_

Merlin's name popped up on the screen and Arthur switched conversations so fast he would probably have been smacked on the head by Gwen for being rude if she'd seen him, but hey, what they didn't know couldn't hurt them. 

**_Merlin:_ ** _So I found out I can break technology with magic but apparently trying to fix it makes it worse._

**_Merlin:_ ** _So much worse._

Arthur snorted and typed a reply, asking Merlin if anything was on fire, before moving back to check Lance's response.

**_Lance:_ ** _Yeah so my boss is sending me to visit the construction site for the new children's hospital we are building in Colombo, it's very last minute._

**_Lance:_ ** _Leaving Saturday morning so we were thinking drinks tomorrow?_

Oh.

**_Merlin:_ ** _A little bit singed maybe. I don't think anyone saw the smoke._

**_Merlin:_ ** _Anyway I've got everything I need for tomorrow so I'll count that as a win._

Oh, crap. Arthur couldn’t say no to Lance without a good excuse, and nothing would be a good excuse but the truth. Arthur hadn't planned on hiding his relationship with Merlin from his friends, but he'd hoped he could have a little time to experience the novelty of it before having to announce it. Gwen would be excited beyond words, Leon would have that look on his face like he's proud of him, and Gwaine would claim _I told you so_ and would let him live it down exactly never. He sighed. He could postpone his date with Merlin, but that didn't solve the issue, because there was no way they wouldn't all see right through him when he saw them, they knew him too well. And he wouldn't change that for the world.

He scrolled through the few unread messages from the others already agreeing to meet and discussing where and what time, started typing, and decided to text Merlin first.

**_Arthur:_ ** _I can't wait to see you, but could we do Saturday instead?_

**_Merlin:_** _Is that what they called mixed signals_ 🤔

Arthur snorted, and forwarded him Lancelot's messages. He knew he would understand. Going back to the other conversation - where Gwaine was as usual trying to argue going to the pub that was, obviously completely unrelatedly to his recommendation of it, _right next to his flat_ \- he finally joined it.

**_Arthur:_ ** _Because I am such a good friend I will come and see you off, but my boyfriend is not very happy with you._

It was a lie, Merlin had already answered that of course he should go and Saturday worked for him and give his best to Lance. But Arthur took what little pleasure he could in the build-up.

**_Leon:_ ** _What boyfriend?_

**_Gwaine:_ ** _whaaaaaat_

**_Gwen:_ ** _For real?_

**_Gwaine:_ ** _Is it an imaginary boyfriend_

**_Percy:_ ** **💣**

**_Lance:_ ** _We saw you on Sunday mate how did that happen?_

**_Gwaine:_ ** _Is it Merlin_

**_Gwen:_ ** _Is it Merlin?!?!?!_

**_Gwaine:_ ** _It better be Merlin_

Arthur, because he _was_ a prat sometimes, put his phone away and went back to work.

He answered about two hours later, not so much because he took pity but because he had 67 new messages and he knew Gwaine wouldn't stop being ridiculous. 

**_Arthur:_ ** _Of course it's Merlin._

Of course, he thought to himself again, as his friends expressed various levels of approval and congratulations - and, obviously in Gwaine's case, innuendo. Could it have been anyone else? Even his friends were taking him in like they were welcoming him back, like he had just been missing from their little group all along. He remembered Merlin mentioning déjà vu, and he couldn't quite shake this feeling either, that instead of being novel and uncertain, this felt like things were slotting into their rightful place. Arthur was finding very hard to maintain his rational mind and not start believing in magic, not just Merlin's but on a universal level, in fate and other lives and love at first sight.

The conversation between his friends had moved on without him, from suggesting he bring Merlin, to deciding he shouldn't so they could grill Arthur about him and no doubt be all sorts of embarrassing. Privately he received a message from Lance.

**_Lance:_ ** _Merlin is absolutely welcome if you guys want to come together. Sorry if I made you change your plans. I'd understand if you can't make it!_

He also got one from Gwen.

**_Gwen:_ ** _TELL. ME. EVERYTHING!_

He quickly told Lance not to be daft, and that he'd check with Merlin but that it might not be a good idea to expose him to Gwaine again so soon, and got ready to take his break and call Gwen. He knew she'd ask a lot of questions, and that would be easier on the phone. 

He still wondered sometimes how his relationship with Gwen had turned out the way it had. She had been Morgana's friend, they'd met through her. They'd dated for about five minutes in secondary school, before realising they both just wanted someone to vent or rave about _other people_ alongside with. Then of course Gwen had met Lance who had just joined their five-a-side team at Uni, and within two years they'd gone and gotten married. But Arthur and Gwen would still get together or on the phone to vent, talk about their relationships (or lack thereof) and generally gossip to their hearts' content. 

“I’m so happy for you!” Gwen squealed as soon as she picked up. “I knew you two had chemistry.” 

“Yeah.” Arthur sighed. “I suppose sometimes things feel… unavoidable.”

“In a good way?” Gwen checked.

“In a good way.” Arthur laughed. “It’s exhilarating, to be honest. It’s happened really fast, I feel like I’ve known him for years, you know?”

“Completely.” Gwen said. “I felt the same when I met Lance. I got this feeling of ‘Oh, there he is. Search over, this is the man I’m spending the rest of my life with’.”

“Well.” Arthur tried to moderate. “I’m not sure we’re there yet, but he’s certainly the man I want to date for the foreseeable future.”

“What a romantic you are.” She teased.

"Oh shut up, you." Arthur said fondly.

"So, how did it happen?" Gwen probed. "Did you ask him out? Did he ask you out?"

"I guess it sort of just… happened. I kissed him." He owned up. "But I don't think it was really premeditated. He took me by surprise."

"I can see that. I think he did us all, when we met him, there was a sort of… I don't know how to describe it really. But when I saw you two together, I knew you were kindred spirits." Gwen let out a contented sigh. "Was it magical?"

Arthur had to laugh. "You could say that."

"I'm so happy for you." Gwen repeated. "I really am. He's great, and you deserve someone who's great. Elena was great. And I get it, I absolutely get it, that she wasn't _the one_ , and you weren't it for her either, but to be honest with you, when you came out as bi I was afraid it'd be a bit of an easy way out or like an excuse for you never to find her. The one. But you found _him_! And I think he could be."

She cleared her throat, clearly realising she'd been ranting and a little bit embarrassed by her outburst. Arthur smiled fondly. She only got like that with things she really cared about. And, well, she was usually right.

"I think he could be too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: "street food and a walk along Southbank, chatting and people-watching" was my actual first date with the man who is now my husband <3


	5. Chapter 5 (Merlin)

Merlin had another dream. He hadn’t even meant to fall asleep, but he’d found himself missing Arthur - he’d encouraged him to go and meet his friends for drinks, obviously, it wasn’t a big deal, he’d see him the next day, but part of him was left bereft. He’d seen the clock go past the exact time they’d met, one week prior, and yeah, he missed Arthur. He’d stopped trying to figure out why. But as it were, sleeping seemed like a good trick to make Saturday happen quicker.

Everything was on fire. The air was thick with black smoke, so dense that Merlin could not see anything. There was a building to the left, stone blackened but standing, and what was left of charred trees to the right, scarce remnants of a forest. Screams around him and roars overhead, invisible and all the more chilling. Everything was chaos, and all he knew was that he was running out of time. _This has happened before._ He knew it’d happened before. He knew what would happen next. He had to save everyone. He _could_ save everyone.

He could save Arthur. He _had to_ save Arthur. Arthur was Albion’s only hope. He could not die, betrayed and bitter, not again. Merlin could not allow for things to repeat themselves. He had to break the cycle. He had to-

He woke up in a start, breathless, the dream escaping him already, its meaning, its urgency. He felt like he had been on the brink of remembering something very, very important, but it was slipping through his fingers with every staccato beat of his heart. What the hell was going on with him? He had, in the past, had some trouble adjusting to the human world if he hadn’t been out of the bottle in a while, but not like this. 

Even though Merlin didn’t think he’d dreamt before, he didn’t see it as something impossible. Dreams were what was left of people’s magical abilities, from a time where warlocks and seers walked the Earth - which Merlin believed with all his being. Call him crazy, but he knew legends did not appear from nowhere, and it wasn’t a leap to believe there had been a time of magic, since he existed, and all the other “supernatural” creatures and people he’d met over the years. 

So dreams were a little bit magic - maybe that was precisely why he didn’t usually dream, being made of magic, or at least, constantly running on it. That he was dreaming now could not be just a coincidence, not with the way he felt about Arthur, and the overwhelming quality of the past few days. What his magic trying to tell him something? Did he have to save Arthur from something, quite literally? Was it less unsubtle than that, did he have to save someone else? _Himself?_ Should he stay away from Arthur? But he couldn't leave him, not as long as he hadn't made his wishes. And with a little pang of pain in his chest, Merlin was reminded he didn't know how he could leave him when he had. 

Burn that bridge when we come to it, he thought to himself, sighing. Although this plan of 'Take in stride the unexpected, incomprehensible and wonderful way this has turned out, enjoy it and figure things out later' was going to become less pleasant if he kept having these nightmares.

He wasn't going to go back to sleep, and going for a walk around wouldn't get him out of his head, so he turned on the telly. After changing the channels a few times to find something that wasn't mind-blowingly vapid, he settled on a history channel that seemed to be talking about cathedrals. He watched passively, until the voice-over mentioned Canterbury, and his ears pricked up, latching on to something familiar. He'd been there, with his very first master actually, it'd be interesting to see how much it had changed.

They were touring inside the cathedral, explaining how many illustrious people were buried there, including a lot of the previous archbishops.

"And it is quite extraordinary, really." A guide from the cathedral was saying onscreen, "how _precise_ the records are for us to consult centuries later." She pointed to the stone in front of her. "The man buried here, Lyfing, was the Archbishop of Canterbury a _thousand_ years ago."

Merlin sat up straighter, scooting to the edge of his sofa. He remembered that name, Lyfing. His first master had been a pious man, albeit a learned and level-headed one, and faced with Merlin, he had wanted to weigh the likelihood of him being either Heaven-sent, a reward for his good deeds, or a demon from Hell with a mission to tempt him to sin. He had required to meet with the Archbishop to seek his expert opinion. 

Things started to slot in his head as the guide continued. "While we do not know when he was born, we know the precise day he died, on the 12th of June 1020. The records…"

Merlin had stopped listening. He remembered how his master never did see the Archbishop, because the man had died. Less than a month after Merlin had "appeared", he remembered, because he'd kept a journal back then. _Day 29._ He remembered writing. _Archbishop will not be meeting us due to death._ Merlin grabbed his phone with shaky hands, and pulled up the calendar, a part of him already knowing his suspicions would be confirmed. Today, day 8 since Arthur had opened his bottle, was 22nd of May, 2020. Day 29, another three weeks from now, he worked out quickly, would be the 12th of June.

Which meant Merlin had not been around for a thousand years, give or take. He had been around for a thousand years _exactly_. To the very day. He had appeared to Arthur a precise 1,000 years after he'd stepped into this world for the first time. With a chill running down his spine, Merlin remembered it had been early evening too, and was willing to bet it had even been at the same time of day. On the same day. Ten centuries ago.

There was no way, _no way_ this did not mean something. The question was what. Merlin racked his brain for a long time trying to remember anything, any sign he might have had over the past thousand years, any significant detail about his first recollection of coming out of the bottle, other than… suddenly, being there. 

He couldn't. It seemed his only evidence was recent. The fact that he had clicked with Arthur like they had always meant to be together. The feelings of déjà vu. How he knew his name, Arthur Pendragon, even though he was sure he had no _memory_ of it. The dreams. Save Arthur, the dreams said. Potentially, save everyone. He could work with that. It was at least a positive mission, if a daunting one. 

He wondered if he should tell Arthur. Not the saving the world bit specifically, that seemed a bit strong to lead with, but the fact he'd inadvertently missed his thousandth birthday. It would probably freak him out, but Merlin thought he'd want to know. And whatever was at play, it was something they ought to figure out together. Merlin had always wondered about past lives, how could he not when he didn't remember growing up. He did not know of any creature who hadn't been born, so he must have existed in some other shape or form before slithering out of the bottle. Had he been human? Another type of magical being? A genie all along, but then what of his memories? What had happened? He had always been wary to find out, and the complete absence of clues had made it easy to avoid dwelling on it. But now, with the chance that maybe, just maybe, Arthur had been part of this past life… he wanted to know. Even if, going by his cataclysmic dreams, the odds were that something rather dramatic had occurred.

His phone beeped with a message, and since Arthur was the only person with the number, he grabbed it at once, and got the string of texts as it unfolded.

**_Arthur:_ ** _my fronds h have been very annoying wanting to dinds out about you_

**_Arthur:_ ** _kept asking questions about you andwhere you're from a and akk dtha_

**_Arthur:_ ** _had to be féru mysterious which was fun but also maybe we should have a story stains!_

Merlin assumed he was very drunk, and his autocorrect had actually done a decent job there as he could get almost all of the gist. He smiled fondly at his phone and wished Arthur was with him, and sod the mysteries of his past, because if Arthur was with him, his present was sorted.

**_Arthur:_ ** _I kobe to_

Merlin stared at his phone for a bit, waiting to see if Arthur would notice that last one made zero sense, then trying to suss out what it _could_ mean. With a little flutter in the pit of his stomach, looking the letters nearby on the keyboard, he took a gamble and typed back.

**_Merlin:_ ** _I love you too._

He waited a while again, but Arthur must have gone to sleep because Merlin didn’t receive any more texts after that.

Arthur called him in the morning though, respectably early considering how late - and drunkenly - he had been texting him. 

"Hello." Merlin was unable to suppress his smile as he picked up.

"Hi." Arthur said, and he sounded like he probably had the same look on his face. What a pair of besotted idiots, Merlin thought. This is lovely.

"Had a good night?" He asked.

"Yeah, good fun. We were all trying to get Lance drunk but he held strong, so he shouldn't be travelling with a hungover today. Good lad."

"How's your head?" Merlin teased.

Arthur chuckled. "Err, yeah, so I'm sure you noticed I was a little drunk last night."

"Were you? I couldn't tell."

"I still meant it." Instead of commenting on the sass, Arthur's next answer came serious, and a little insecure. 

This is a serious moment, Merlin thought. Where I confirm I meant it too. Where we catch our breath in the realisation that we found each other, and were meant for each other. It's a powerful moment.

"You mean you _do_ kobe to?" He couldn't help himself. 

Thankfully, Arthur burst out laughing. And, Merlin thought, maybe that was more important and powerful than the words themselves.

They spoke for a while before Arthur announced he needed to go get a shower and some food, and Merlin didn’t think he’d hear from him again until their date that evening.

As he set out to cook them dinner, he forced himself to stop circling back in his mind to the issue of the whole genie-master situation, which did put a damper on their budding relationship. He tried telling himself to enjoy the present moment, and that it could be years until Arthur made his first wish anyway.

He was wrong on both accounts. 

Arthur phoned him again in the afternoon, and Merlin knew immediately, just by the way Arthur said his name like he was a lifeline, that something had happened. 

“Arthur, what’s wrong?” He tried to not instantly panic.

“Merlin.” Arthur repeated, and he sounded like he was fighting very hard not to break down. “I’m with Gwen, we just, it’s, it’s Lance, we just heard, he’s… I'll need to, I want to, he needs, wish, but I, I don't know…"

"Arthur, calm down." Merlin urged him. "Is Lance hurt?"

"Yes." Arthur confirmed in a broken voice.

"In Colombo?" 

"Yes. No. Moscow. Layover." Arthur managed to say.

Merlin took a deep breath. This wasn't going to be a quick flick of his fingers to help a friend kind of magic, Arthur was right. If they wanted the situation to not be shit, he would have to wish for it.

"Okay. We'll find a way. Just come here." He took another breath before adding, not really seeing another way: "Bring Gwen. She's going to have to know."

It wasn't the first time people other than his masters had found out about him, whether he'd been in a situation where he'd had to reveal his magic or his master had just been monumentally indiscreet with the information. He trusted Gwen would take it rather better than most people, from the little he'd seen of her. Either way, whatever had exactly happened, he couldn't help her husband and not tell her how without stirring a lot of questions. For this to be as efficient as possible, they had no choice but to keep her in the loop.

He did his best to clear the kitchen - food could wait - before Arthur turned up. He arrived not long after, Gwen in tow. She had clearly cried and looked at a complete loss. Arthur had a wretched look on his own face, and Merlin couldn't help but pull him into a hug as soon as he opened the door, cupping the back of his head and kissing the hollow beneath his ear. He only let him go to take Gwen's hand and lead her inside to the sofa.

"I made tea." He offered.

She nodded numbly, and when he returned with the cups, Arthur was sat next to her running soothing circles on her back.

"What happened?" Merlin asked.

"I got a call from the colleague Lance was travelling with." Gwen explained. Her voice was not as shaky as Merlin had thought it would be. "There was a fight? A passenger got very drunk on the plane and tried to kiss one of the cabin crew when they got off the plane, and when she told him no, he hit her. Well, he tried to. Lance got in the middle of it. He's in hospital." Her voice did break then, and she buried her face into her hands.

"They were at the top of the stairs getting off the plane." Arthur took over. "He fell onto the tarmac."

"Shit." Merlin breathed. He'd never been on a plane - he really did not need to put himself through that when he could pretty much teleport - but he'd been close enough to one to know even the smaller aircrafts were still the kind of height it would hurt falling from.

Arthur got up and came closer, his voice dropping to a whisper so Gwen, who was trying not to sob, couldn’t hear him.

"I know you said things can't un-happen." He fiddled with Merlin's collar. "But what can I wish for? He might have broken his back, from the news Gwen heard he's touch and go, and I can't… I can't imagine losing a friend but most of all I'm thinking of Gwen. He's her husband, she should be with him, and he needs to be alright, he can't…"

He choked, and Merlin cradled him into a hug again. He should have known Arthur first wish would be made to help his friends. Nothing seemed to make more sense.

"It's okay." He hushed. "It'll be okay. We'll fix it.”

"Merlin." Gwen spoke from the sofa, her voice small but determined. "Arthur said you would be able to help, and wouldn't tell me how, but… I don't care if it costs everything I have or if it's illegal or…"

"No, no, nothing like that." Merlin released Arthur to crouch next to her. "Well, actually, it probably is illegal by medieval laws, but let's not go there." Gwen looked confused, and Merlin took a deep breath. He didn't know her well enough to ask her to just go along with whatever he had to say. "Do you trust Arthur?" He asked first. 

"Yes, of course." Gwen said with determination. "And if Arthur trusts you… I trust you."

"Thank you." Merlin gave her a sincere smile. "Because this is going to sound insane, and I need you to know I'm not trying to take the piss. I also maybe need you to keep this to yourself?"

He glanced back at Arthur to see what he thought. Telling Gwen about his magic out of necessity, to help her and Lance, was one thing, but in his experience the more people knew about him, the more problems he (and his master) started to have.

Arthur nodded. "I think this will become obvious when we've explained." He told Gwen, taking his spot next to her again. "See, Merlin can help because he's got magic."

Gwen looked between them, clearly trying to figure out where this was going.

"Is this a figure of speech?" She asked.

"No, literally." Merlin confirmed. "I'm a genie."

He thought the quickest course of action was to demonstrate, so he changed into a merlin and fluttered across the room. He saw Arthur startle just as much as Gwen. She gasped a put a hand over her mouth, but after a few shocked seconds of watching him fly about, her surprise turned to wonder.

"Like the bird." She whispered with something like delight.

He hovered in front of them for a few more seconds - he did love being a bird - before he changed back.

"So, yeah." He said after a beat, as Gwen was just gaping and Arthur didn't look much less in awe. "Magic."

"Wow." Gwen breathed after a moment. "Okay. So, err, what can you do?"

Merlin shrugged modestly. "Anything. If Arthur wishes for it."

"Arthur? Oh." Realisation shone on her face. "You're… wait, is that how you met?"

"Yes. Sadly there is no way to say 'Arthur rubbed my bottle' and not make it sound dirty." Merlin deadpanned. 

It made Gwen snort, which he would count as a small victory. However, she frowned immediately after.

"But you're together though, that part is true?" They both nodded, and may or may not have looked a little stupidly at each other, and her frown deepened, but a bit like she was forcing herself not to melt at the sight. "Isn't that a little messed up?" She asked.

Arthur looked sheepish, but Merlin took his hand and shook his head.

"It's all good." He smiled. "Like I told Arthur, he can't make me do anything outside of his three wishes. And he's still got the three."

"Well, not for long." Arthur jumped it. "I'll use one to make sure Lance is alright." He took and squeezed Gwen's hand. "It **will** be alright." He turned to Merlin. "So. How does this work?"

He looked so adorably determined Merlin wanted to kiss him again, but he forced himself to focus. Lance first, snogging later. "Well." He explained. "I found from experience that one wish is one operative verb. So to speak. So you can't add a million details. On the other hand, you can't be too vague either, it's too open to interpretation, and while I direct this thing the best I can, magic tends to take the quickest route when unchecked. So don't ask for Lance and Gwen to have nothing to worry about, for example."

"Why?" Gwen piped up.

Merlin looked at her sombrely. "You won't have anything to worry about if you're both dead." He didn't want to sugar-coat it. It had happened to him before, and he had vowed long ago to _not_ let masters make stupid wishes if he could help it.

Gwen paled, and Arthur's jaw set in even determination. He thought for a moment, and eventually breathed out. "Okay. Merlin, I wish for this bad situation to become a good one, for Lance and Gwen and the people they care about and who care about them."

Merlin gave him a soft smile. It was perfect. He felt the magic fill him, warming and familiar, extending beyond his body and his mind and playing around with the balance of the world. Just a little bit, not enough to tip it, just what it needed to be righted for a little pocket of life in a hospital in Moscow, and the tendrils connected from there to this very flat. It was done in just a few seconds, and he focused his gaze again on a bewildered Arthur and Gwen.

"Your wish is my command." He said. He didn’t have to, but it always gave him a little thrill. It made everything sound more dramatic and official.

They both just blinked at him, so he specified. "It's done. It will all be fine. Even I can't tell you exactly how, the world has a way of finding its own way, but I nudged it back in the right direction."

"But…" Gwen started. 

She was interrupted by her phone, and she mouthed an apology as she walked off to pick it up. Merlin turned his attention back to Arthur, who looked equal parts awestruck and turned on. 

"I don't know what I was expecting, but…" He brushed Merlin's hair back behind his ear, rubbed his arm with his other hand, touched him like he wanted to make sure he was real. "Your eyes were shining gold." He said timidly. "You looked… otherworldly."

"That's a big word." Merlin quipped, but seeing the insecurity still lingering on Arthur's face, he hooked his arms around him, grounding. "I'm right here with you."

They broke their embrace as Gwen returned, looking all flustered. "That was Lance's boss." She said, waving her phone. "He said he has a friend in Moscow who's a very renowned surgeon and he asked him to go check on Lance, and he's optimistic, says there shouldn't be any long term problems with his spine and he should actually make a quick recovery. And he spoke to the travel insurance people, and they are going to cover all medical costs, and they're paying for me to go to Moscow and stay in a hotel near the hospital. The flight is in three hours, so I have to go home and pack a bag, but I can see him tonight, and he'll be okay, and…"

She burst into tears, and flung her arms around Merlin, hugging him fiercely. "Thank you." She sobbed. "Thank you so much, I can't even begin…"

Merlin patted her back, feeling a little awkward. "Thank Arthur too." He deflected. "Couldn't have done it without him."

She transferred to Arthur and gave him the same tight hug. "You are the best friend anyone could hope for, and I know you would have found a way to help even if you didn't happen to have magic at your disposal."

Arthur chuckled weakly. "Probably." He said. "Okay, if you're going to make your flight, you should go. I'll call you a cab."

Within ten minutes, Arthur had spoken to the cab company, found a driver who was willing to take Gwen home, wait for her to pack and drive her to the airport. She gave them both one last hug and a kiss on the cheek, and she was out the door.

"Well." Merlin sighed. "That turned out alright."

Arthur looked at him seriously. "You say that like you didn't make it happen."

"You wished for it." Merlin retorted. He stepped forward, and softly kissed Arthur's lips. "It was a good wish."

“One down.” Arthur said a little sadly. “Only two to go.”

Merlin kissed him again in an attempt to sooth him - he clearly was a little bit overwhelmed. Merlin couldn’t blame him, between the shock of his friend’s accident and the demonstration of magic, he had every right to be.

“We have time.” He said, carding his fingers through Arthur’s hair. “It doesn’t change anything. You other wishes might be years apart.”

He was wrong again. 


	6. Chapter 6 (Merlin)

On the Sunday Merlin woke up from a dream again – this was starting to be an annoying pattern – although this time quite softly. He was in Arthur’s arms, in Arthur’s bed – they’d had their dinner at Merlin’s the night before, though with the mood being as it was, it hadn’t felt all that much like a date. Arthur had nothing with him and they hadn’t felt like parting for the night, so Merlin had followed him back home.

Merlin couldn’t remember what the dream had been. He just knew that he’d felt like he belonged. He’d felt safe, and loved, and accepted, and the transition to wakefulness had been so seamless, he thought maybe he’d dreamt about being in Arthur’s arms, in Arthur’s bed. Though he still didn’t understand why he was suddenly dreaming, after a thousand years of barely even sleeping, it was a nice change from the nightmares.

A thousand years, he remembered. Exactly. He still didn’t know if he should tell Arthur. Part of him thought he deserved to know, part of him thought, what’s the point? They would only have more questions. Maybe he didn’t need to burden him with another mystery. Figuring out how to love each other was shaping up to be challenging enough.

“I can hear you thinking.” Arthur mumbled next to him. “Stop it.”

Merlin huffed. “I’ll make breakfast.” He announced. He did not really even need to get up for that, he could conjure food they didn’t even have in the fridge right there when they were hungry, but something about being around Arthur made him want to use his hands, like a normal person, rather than magic things ready. Last night, it had felt like cooking for him was the most natural thing in the world.

Arthur’s hand slid up his waist before he could full roll out of bed. “Or…” He said, his eyes only just fluttering open. “You could stay here a bit.” His hand went high enough that his fingers brushed Merlin’s nipple, and as Merlin startled and bit his lip at the intimate touch, Arthur suddenly looked a lot more awake.

“Is it… possible?” He asked tentatively.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Merlin murmured back.

“I don’t know. Magic.” Arthur looked so adorable that Merlin did not have the heart to laugh in his face, but he did smile, amused.

“Magic isn’t a STI.” He pointed out. “And it’s the only part of me we don’t have in common, so we’re good to go.” He turned back on his side to face Arthur, brushed his mussed hair out of his face. “But there’s no rush.” He added. “I want to take our time exploring this.”

“So do I.” Arthur agreed. “But we can start…” 

Merlin did agree that they could most definitely start, and continue, along those lines, but before things could take an interesting turn, the doorbell rang. “Or…” He drew back a little. “We could answer that.”

Arthur looked miffed, and like he was considering just ignoring it entirely, but the person at the door would clearly not be taking no for an answer, as the bell rang another three times in as many seconds of indecision.

“That’s probably my sister.” Arthur sighed. “No other wanker would ring like this.”

“I’ll make myself presentable.” Merlin offered.

“I’ll try to tell her about you in the meantime if she lets me get a word in edgeways, but otherwise prepare yourself for _Who the hell are you_ when you appear.”

“I don’t have to appear?” Merlin suggested, not sure Arthur wanted to do this now.

“I have no intention of hiding you.” Arthur said firmly. He planted a kiss on his lips with even more determination, and Merlin could only chuckle. “Get dressed and join us. I’M COMING!” He turned to shout at the unrelenting ringing.

He got dressed hastily on the way to the door, grumbling the whole time, and Merlin dashed into the bathroom. He heard the distant muffled sound of animated conversation as he washed and dressed as quickly and efficiently as he could, before he emerged and followed the voices to the kitchen - Arthur's, and a female one, so he had probably assumed right, and that would be…

The woman from his dream. Merlin froze at the door, the breath knocked out of him at the sight of the unmistakable dark hair, fine features and fiery eyes. She looked at him curiously as they both stopped talking.

"I've seen you before." She said. 

Merlin could not speak. He could barely hear as Arthur told her to stop being weird, and introduced them to each other. He thought he might have said _Nice to meet you_ , a reflex response to the situation, but all he knew was that magic was beating in his ears like blood and he felt dizzy. Morgana was still staring, not aggressive nor challenging, but with a little frown like she was trying to place him.

"I don't think you've met." Arthur told her, in a tone that said _I absolutely know you haven't._ He turned to Merlin. "Morgana heard about Gwen and Lance, I was just telling her… Are you okay?" He looked concerned, and Merlin guessed that some of his internal panic must be showing on his face. 

_I can save you too_. The thought came to his mind unbidden, and he almost blurted it out loud. Instead he forced himself to take a breath.

"Sorry." He said with as much cheer as he could muster, which wasn't a whole lot. "You do look familiar too, maybe we crossed paths before. What a coincidence!" 

Arthur gave him an odd look, but Morgana seemed, if not content with that, at least prepared to accept it as a possibility for now.

"I suppose." She said. "It's a small world."

"Did you hear from Gwen?" Merlin asked Arthur; he wanted to change the subject, but he actually found that he also genuinely cared. Arthur's friends were good people.

Arthur probably saw the diversion for what it was, but he let him have it. They talked for a bit, Merlin not really listening beyond the initial information that Gwen had arrived safely in Moscow and Lance was stable. 

"I'll leave you to your Sunday." Morgana said after a while. She was still looking at Merlin somewhat questioningly, but that might have been because he hadn't said a word since his first question. "It was nice meeting you, Merlin. Hope we can get to know each other better soon."

"You too." Merlin said, trying to sound like he meant it. He would have, in any other circumstances, been delighted to get to know Arthur's sister. But he needed to get to the bottom of these dreams first, and everything else around them.

Arthur walked her to the door, and as she leaned in to say something to him, Merlin magically strained his hearing to catch it.

"There's something about him." She murmured. "I hope he's good for you."

"He's the best thing that's happened to me in a long time." Arthur replied, his voice low but unwavering. 

Merlin withdrew, feeling himself blush - out of guilt for eavesdropping, just a little, and mostly irrationally pleased. It was really hard to focus on unexplainable coincidences and potential threats to the world he had to thwart, when Arthur was being Arthur and he was so in love with him.

But this time Arthur did not let him have it.

“What was that about?” He asked when he’d closed the door after Morgana. “You just stood there looking like you were having a minor stroke. And ‘maybe we crossed paths before’? You’ve never met her before.” 

Merlin tried to give him a smile, but he could tell all he could manage was a contorted grimace. “You know.” He said softly. “I think maybe I have.”

“What are you talking about?” Arthur pushed with a little edge to his voice. 

He’s scared, Merlin thought. He’s as scared as I am of losing him. First seeing him perform magic the day before, then this, it was making Arthur realise - or remember - that there was nothing standard about their relationship, and that they couldn’t just take it slow and see where it led them. As much as Arthur tried to treat Merlin just as a normal person, and as much as Merlin wanted to let him, they couldn’t bury their heads in the sand.

“She was in my dream.” Merlin confessed, his throat tight. “The first one, the… the nightmare. One of them. The worst of them. She was there, and I think I know her. Knew her. In a previous life, or something? And I knew you.”

“But that’s not possible.” Arthur said weakly.

“Yes, because this whole week has been your exact definition of possible.” Merlin bit back.

“But just because you dreamed of her, or think you have, doesn’t mean she was in your past lives, if that’s even a thing!” Arthur argued.

“Think I have?” Merlin repeated, bewildered. “Like I’m making this up?”

“I’m not saying you are. But maybe you saw her on the street, or something, and-”

“I did **_not_** see her on the street.” Merlin was sure of that, if of anything. “Just like I did not see your name written down anywhere, Arthur _Pendragon_.” He reminded him with maybe a little more venom than was warranted. “I know I have no memory of it.”

He was exhausted from this permanent confusion, and the last thing he needed was for Arthur to start being all doubtful and rational about it all. “Yet I knew your name. And I knew her, because that dream was not something my mind just _made up_ , it was a memory or a warning or _something_. Because I don’t dream, did I tell you that? For a thousand years, before meeting you, I did, not, dream. And it is an actual _thousand_ years, to the fucking day. I saw it on TV - the Archbishop of Canterbury who died in 1020, I was around, I remember him. It matches, the exact day you got hold of my bottle.”

The summarised explanation was shoddy at best, but he hoped Arthur would get the gist and take his word for it, because he felt too much turmoil to iron out the finer details of the timeline. He realised he had a proper rant in full swing now, and he could see from Arthur’s face that he should stop and apologise and take him into his arms, but he realised there was a weight that was lifting as he spoke, and he had to carry on, get it all out, unravel, and hope things could fit together again when he was all done.

“I remember the first time I came into this world.” He continued, hoping his voice didn’t sound as broken as his heart felt. “I don’t remember anything before that, just that I was there, and magic was running through me, and there was this man and my magic was bound to him. That is all I ever knew, this binding, this obligation, like a penance for something I cannot remember owing. This is all I have known for a thousand years, and then I meet you, and I feel like anything is possible, like I can be free to love and live like the person I never was, and I have dreams and déjà-vu and it has been an exact thousand years - how can that be a coincidence? So don’t you go telling me maybe I just happened to meet your bloody sister on the street.”

Arthur was silent for a moment, then he sighed, rubbed both hands over his face and dropped to the sofa.

“Jesus Christ.” He muttered. He looked up at Merlin, considering, then patted the seat next to him. “Come here. We’re not continuing this conversation with you standing there all wired up.”

Merlin stepped forward tentatively, but Arthur grabbed his arm as soon as he was within reach, pulled him down to lean against him and wrapped his arms around him.

“Your heart is beating like mad.” He spoke quietly into his ear. “Calm down.”

Merlin wanted to say something about the irony of Arthur being the one to try and calm him down, when he’d clearly just upset him by dropping these last few bombs of information, but he let himself be cradled, he tried to get his breathing and the beat of his blood under control, and he tried not to start crying or screaming out of sheer frustration.

“I’m sorry.” He said after a while, his voice small. “I didn’t mean to unload like that.”

“Yes, you did.” Arthur countered. “And you were right to. You shouldn’t keep all this to yourself. If this is real...” He sighed. “If this is real, then it concerns me as much as it does you. And we need to figure it out together.”

“I thought that.” Merlin admitted. “But I didn’t want to burden you.”

“Don’t hide things from me.” Arthur said, a little snappily. “If it’s a burden, I want to carry it with you. But that’s for me to decide. And you are not a burden, Merlin, do you hear me? You, your magic, your reincarnations or your past lives of whatever happened during and before your thousand years as a genie. It’s messy, and scary, and complicated, but it’s part of you, and I love you, okay?”

It was maybe a minute before Merlin could trust himself to speak. “Okay.” Even that was merely a strangled whisper.

“Good.” Arthur’s arms seem to tighten a little more around him, and Merlin knew that for all his reassurances, he wasn’t all that confident about where things were going. “What now?” He asked, confirming those suspicions.

“I don’t know.” Merlin said. “I don’t know where to even begin. It’s not like there is a precedent to research, or someone I can ask.”

“What…” Arthur hesitated. “What do your dreams say?”

“It’s not all that clear. There’s a sense of urgency, like I have something to do, to prevent something terrible from happening. I need to… save people. I don’t know. They raise more questions than bring answers, to be honest. I don’t really have any answers.”

Arthur sighed. “I wish you had all the answers.” He let out.

Magic ran through Merlin like an electric shock. “Oh.” He breathed, at the same time as he heard Arthur’s sharp intake of breath as he realised what he’d just said.

And then it burned. Merlin cried out in pain, his entire being on fire, millions of thoughts and memories flooding his head, millions of feelings and sensations running through his body, and it was too much, and he couldn’t breathe or process any of it, he just arched against Arthur and let it implode inside him, all the magic in the world, a thousand years - and a few.

“Arthur.” He said desperately when he could speak.

His prince. His friend. His king. The love of his life. Arthur shushed, soothingly, running his fingers through his hair, pushing it back from his sweaty forehead, pressing his lips to his temple, holding him as the last few spasms of magic rattled through him.

“I didn’t mean to.” He whispered. “But did it work?”

Merlin couldn’t help but let out a shaky laugh, and he allowed himself to lie there against Arthur’s chest for a few more minutes before he confirmed, before he had to explain.

“I remember.” He said eventually.


	7. Chapter 7 (Arthur)

When Arthur inadvertently made his second wish, his heart skipped a beat. He felt the rush of magic as Merlin seized up in his arms, and there was nothing he could do but hold him.

Now, an hour later at most thought it felt like an eternity, an entire previous life, maybe, he was hugging himself and trying not to react the way his instincts were telling him to - that this was stupid and impossible, that magic did not exist, that he wasn't a reincarnated king and that he did not want to hear another word about it. Merlin was looking at him helplessly, having blurted out some of what he could remember in a jumbled mess, the main aspects of which being that Arthur had been a prince, destined to be a great king, Merlin had been a sorcerer, there had been an ill-intended curse, visions of a dreadful future, and somehow the only solution to that had been for Merlin to become a genie and for everyone else to forget their previous existence. They would have to go over the details again, later.

Right now, it seemed more urgent to do one important thing, and so Arthur shook himself out of what was most definitely not a minor mental breakdown, and held out a hand to Merlin.

"Stop pacing. Come here."

In a repeat of what had happened just after their previous argument, Merlin hesitated to come forward but Arthur pulled him close.

"It doesn't change a thing." He told him, drawing just as much comfort from the words as he was providing. "I love you. Now, maybe, we know why. But I think I would have loved you anyway."

He did, he thought. Back then. Merlin had told him they'd been lovers, after years of running circles around each other like two massive idiots.

"It changes everything." Merlin countered. Arthur opened his mouth to protest, but Merlin squeezed his hand in reassurance. "Not in a bad way. You're my destiny. People linked by destiny will always find each other."

There was a beat, complete silence, then Arthur snorted. "Did you just quote _The Witcher_?"

Merlin shuffled in his arms to face him and pout at him. "It's a good show." He argued.

"You should read the books."

Merlin raised a brow. "Did you read the books?"

Arthur snorted again. It was very unbecoming. He'd have to control that. 

"No." He admitted. "But that's what everyone tells you to do."

"Yes." Merlin smiled. "People seem to find great pride in having read the books once something gets popular through its adaptation."

"Well, the books are always better."

"Not always." Merlin argued.

"Hmm, I think always." Arthur insisted.

"I'll let you have _usually._ " Merlin granted. "But _always_ is an unnecessary generalisation."

"Oh, you'll let me have it? Is that how it is?"

Merlin grinned. "I have all the answers, remember?"

Arthur could tell Merlin had said that to make him laugh, but that sobered him up instantly. He always let himself be carried away with Merlin, and had these moments of - Oh yeah. Powerful genie. Used to be a great sorcerer. Has just remembered this entire previous life from 1,000 years ago when I was apparently royalty.

“Can you tell me more about…” He hesitated. Me? Us? The past? This alternate reality? “About Camelot.” He settled on.

Merlin chuckled. “I didn’t have all the answers then, I can tell you that.” He took Arthur’s hand, his smile warm. “How about I show you?”

Arthur nodded, and he could only briefly sees Merlin’s eyes going gold before their surroundings changed, and he was in the courtyard of a great big castle. Scenes flitted around him like memories - memories of being a prince, a knight, a future king. Memories of being an entitled prat, a master, a friend, a lover. Memories of being a son, a brother. He came out of it with a feeling of contentment, a not-quite familiarity that was nevertheless comforting. It wasn’t that he could remember any of it, not like Merlin clearly could, but it rang true. He had been, was, this person.

“It was good.” He said wistfully, as his living room materialised back again.

“It was.” Merlin spoke softly, still holding his hands.

Arthur felt a surge of love towards him, the man - genie - in front of him, in his modern clothing, so present and real, and the man that had just been shown to him, the servant who had become his best friend and whom he’d loved, without ever knowing his true self. The man who had shared his bed and stuck by his side even though there seemed to have been no space in Arthur’s heart for him to take a chance, and reveal the most important piece of himself, his magic. The man who had been waiting for him for a thousand years, whether he’d realised it or not.

“That’s why I had to save it.” Merlin added, before Arthur could utter the words that had formed in his heart. _I’m sorry._

“Camelot was not just… a kingdom. Your kingdom, even if I ended up stopping the timeline before you became king. It would become a symbol of unity, of hope, of courage, of how people who stand together can accomplish anything. It was balance, and peace, and… home.”

He shook his head.

“Or at least it could have been, should have been. In a lot of ways, it was. You felt it, it was good. You had so much potential, you were meant to bring Albion together, and I was destined to help you. But it started getting derailed before you and I were even born. Nobody realised it was a curse, but it was, as I found out later. A curse that poisoned Uther’s heart, caused him to turn against the balance and _wreck it_.”

He’d spat out the last words with a dejected snarl, and Arthur felt a little taken aback. He hadn’t really ever gotten along with his father - Uther had never given him the time of day as a child, content to let him and Morgana be raised by nannies, and as an adult it didn’t leave him with much to say to the man - but there was hatred in Merlin’s voice. 

Merlin probably had heard it too, because he looked guilty for a moment, and sighed as he carried on. 

“I suppose I shouldn’t resent him.” He acknowledged. “Like I said, I found out years later that he had been the first victim of a long-standing curse, one that would eventually take everything good about Camelot, and turn it to war and loss and grief. Instead of holding Camelot as an example of greatness and possibility, future generations, this world right here, would remember it as a precedent of reaching power through hatred and brute force, an example of how difference is best feared and eradicated.”

“Nobody remembers Camelot at all.” Arthur pointed out. He had put himself through a history degree, parallel to his business studies, maybe out of defiance again his father, but mostly out of passion. He had read _a lot_. He knew his medieval era.

“No.” Merlin admitted. “Because I made a deal. I was shown a vision, of how this curse, this poison, would spread. Fire, war, death. Magic can be used for good or evil, like any force, but that is something Uther never understood. I saw more sorcerers condemned and burned for the only fault of having been born with magic, just like me, regardless of their actions. I saw more sorcerers seeking out vengeance and becoming exactly what Uther feared they were. I saw Morgana turning against her family and her home because she believed her magic would never be accepted.”

“Hold on, what?” Arthur interrupted. “Morgana?”

“She was a seer, and a sorceress.” Merlin said solemnly. “She would have become a High Priestess of the Old Religion, but through misguided alliances and hatred. But she isn’t a bad person. She was always so conflicted.”

“I suppose she still is, even in this world.” Arthur mused.

“Maybe.” Merlin nodded, thoughtful. “It isn’t a coincidence that you are all here, now, very much the same souls as you were then.”

“Was it part of the deal?” Arthur asked.

“In a way.” Merlin agreed. “You can’t just erase people out of existence, magic or not. Lives leave a trace, but for these lives, your lives, to leave a trace like that…” He shook his head. “I couldn’t let it happen. Even without the part of my decision that was just for selfish reasons.”

Arthur frowned. “What part?” It sounded to him like Merlin had sacrificed the life he knew to save a symbol. What could be selfish about that?

Merlin gave him a pained look. “The part where this vision ended with more war and betrayal, and a sword through your chest.”

Arthur felt the blood leave his face. “I died?” He croaked.

“You didn’t.” Merlin almost growled, fervently. “Because I didn’t let it happen. I couldn’t let it happen.” He looked down. “I was given this vision of so much pain and suffering, of the lasting impact it would have not just on everyone in Camelot, but on millions of people in the world for _centuries_ , and all I could think about was that I couldn’t live without you. For a moment, I was just a boy, who was so, so in love with you. It almost crippled me.”

Arthur’s throat was tight, and he resolved he was very much _not_ going to cry, though if the shine in Merlin’s eyes converted to tears, he didn’t know how strong that resolve would hold. But Merlin closed his eyes, inhaled, let out a shaky breath, and when he looked up again, his gaze was determined.

“But.” He continued. “Then I remembered I was the Universe's idea of restoring balance after the purge by putting all the missing magic into one new-born baby, and therefore the most powerful warlock to ever walk the Earth, and I decided to sodding do something about it.”

This startled a laugh out of Arthur, and Merlin finally cracked a smile again. Be it his smile or the resolution of his story, Arthur suddenly felt with the utmost confidence that everything would be fine as long as Merlin carried on, well, being Merlin.

“So, yeah.” The genie, warlock, magical wonder that he was, spoke again. “I bargained.”

“Who with?” Arthur asked.

Merlin looked sheepish. “Sort of… Nature? Magic itself? I’m not entirely sure. The Old Religion had a way of being very mystical. I went into a trance of sorts, it was a bit like shifting my magic around and trying to see where it could go, so things would end up for the best. I couldn’t let Camelot go on as it was, couldn’t let my friends get corrupted one after the other and become the bad examples of history. But like I said earlier, you can’t rewrite existence, so the lives had to go somewhere.” He gestured at Arthur. “And here you are.”

Arthur raised an eyebrow. “So the deal was, what? That we would all vanish from collective memory and be reincarnated a thousand years later, while you… became a genie?”

“Pretty much?” Merlin winced. “I poured my magic back into the Universe to stop the curse, break the cycle of failure, betrayal and death, and give Camelot another chance at being the change and the hope it was meant to be. In doing so, I tied my magic down, and locked away any memory of being anything else but… bound.” He shrugged, though didn’t quite manage to appear as casual as he tried. “Small price to pay.”

“No it’s not.” Arthur breathed painfully. “Oh, Merlin. What if that hadn’t worked? What it you’d just… erased us all, and lived to remember it?”

Merlin had a rueful smile. “That’s what Morgana said. She found out what I was about to do, and tried to talk me out of it - but that only made my will stronger. She was still my friend, trying to protect me. I knew if I didn’t do anything, she would become someone who was trying to kill me. But I could save her - I could save everyone. Was there really a choice?”

Arthur pulled Merlin into a hug, the other man’s arms immediately coming up to return the embrace. “You self-sacrificing idiot.” He whispered into his ear. 

“It was worth the risk.” Merlin whispered back.

Arthur drew back, and gave him a pained look. “Was it? I don’t feel like we’re doing a stellar job of this second chance.” He deplored.

“Maybe not.” Merlin admitted. “But it was never meant to be all on you. Just like it was never meant to be all on me, even though we both tried. The bloody dragon always did tell me our destinies were linked, that we were two sides of the same coin.”

“The dragon.” Arthur deadpanned. “Of course.”

Merlin smiled, and pressed a hand to Arthur’s cheek. “Forget about the dragon.” He said. “His memory lived, the stories are there, so he won’t be back. I don’t think he would want to, I think the time of dragons is over.”

“Thank god for that.” His dry tone wasn’t convincing even to his own ears, but it was all he could do to keep down any hysteria threatening to rise in his chest.

But then Merlin kissed him, softly, and he felt himself calm down. They were together. Nothing could really go wrong from there, and he didn’t need a mythical dragon to tell him that. Whatever risky deal Merlin had made with the Universe, it hadn’t kept them apart. After a thousand years, be it magic or pure coincidence, Arthur had found Merlin’s bottle. Merlin had saved him and kept him safe from the curse, and Arthur had brought him back, somehow making exactly the right wish for him to get his memories back. Having to somehow be a symbol of hope and change for the entire world was daunting. But with Merlin by his side, it didn’t scare him. Together, there was nothing they couldn’t achieve.

So it was almost with eagerness that he asked: “What do we do now?"

"Now." Merlin smiled. "We restore Camelot."


	8. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And a tiny little epilogue to wrap this up!  
> Told you there wasn't much plot :)  
> Still, hope you enjoyed this!

_THE AGE OF SELFLESSNESS_

_“People love talking about the issues the Earth and its populations are facing, but very few of us actually do much about it.”_

_Five years ago, this was Arthur Pendragon’s response when asked where he got the idea for Camelot, his… company? App? Concept? It is hard to find a single word to define what proved to be a revolution on a global scale._

_When launched by Pendragon and his team, it wasn’t much more than a source of information meant to provide a little guidance._

_“We know we are not doing things right.” Arthur explained at the time. “It is frustrating that humanity has the intelligence to see things coming, to know exactly what the problems are, and yet somehow cannot reach a consensus and gather the resources to do something about it.”_

_According to its founders, Camelot was inspired by crowdfunding and by how fast information moves across the Internet._

_“Only this time, we wanted something truly important to go viral. We wanted all these ‘influencers’ to tell people what to do about these problems, not what to buy, eat or wear.”_

_And go viral, Camelot did. It began as a simple app, combining a few of the things others were already doing: solutions and ideas to lead a more sustainable life, scanning products for information, opportunities to volunteer or donate, petitions, expert advice - Pendragon worked closely with a lot of different stakeholders to link these existing ideas into a central place, building a reputation block by block until Camelot became a label, an international seal of approval, a guarantee that your time, money and energy would not be wasted or misused, but actually be put towards improving things._

_“It isn’t easy to prompt people to action.” Arthur recognises. “We always doubt we can make a difference on an individual basis. I wanted to give everyone the opportunity to do something, even something little. Each and every one of us can make a difference, if we all move in the same direction. It is that direction that is perverted nowadays, as individualism has become standard. We need to move into a new age of selflessness. It’s not about being holier-than-thou or calling people out for enjoying themselves - just a way to all realise we don’t have to be destructive in the process. By taking care of our planet, and of others, we are taking care of ourselves, right now and for the future.”_

_Launched with no other marketing than word of mouth and a few well-placed posts on social media, Camelot spread like wildfire and expanded to be the biggest non-profit organisation in the world in just a few years. When asked what made Camelot such a success compared to other attempts of that nature, Arthur smiles: “A little bit of magic. And a **lot** of work.”_

_Camelot has grown to encompass all aspects of life, redirecting people to millions of sources of information and ways to act and take part, at whatever level they may choose. The cumulative benefits and the change it has brought up are tracked, transparent, and a great boost to encourage people to carry on acting in a way that is ‘completely Camelot’ - and yes, it has made the dictionary._

_Today governments, corporations, celebrities and scholars alike participate and are influenced by this exceptional collaborative concept, contributing funds and information, and taking notice of the better ways that are highlighted. Now with five billion users all over the globe, Camelot has become a way of life, one that may just be saving the planet._

Merlin put the magazine down – he hadn’t yet tired of reading that article since he’d come out a few days ago – when he heard Arthur shuffle into the room. He was still buttoning his shirt, taking absolute ages to get ready, which was usually a tell-tale sign he had something on his mind.

"You sure about this?"

Merlin shot him a look - he was aiming for long-suffering, but he expected he only achieved _fond_.

"How many times have you asked me that?"

"On average, twice a day." Arthur answered cheerfully. "Keeps you on your toes."

"Yes, I'm sure about this." Merlin humoured him. "I might not have all the answers anymore-" not since Arthur had wished for his magic to be free again he didn't "-but I can still make decisions. This isn’t exactly a hard one." 

Arthur grabbed him by the waist, pulled him close, and dipped him slightly for a kiss. "Always my trusted advisor."

It still baffled Merlin how, after ten years - five in this world, five in a previous life - Arthur still had the power to sweep him off his feet. He was meant to be the one with all-powerful magic, damn it.

“Still.” Arthur kissed Merlin one more time, before releasing him and straightening up. “You realise Gwaine will be insufferable.”

Merlin looked at him, unimpressed. “Arthur, we are not lying about our engagement for the sake of making sure Gwaine doesn’t win a bet. We have great news, and we’re telling our friends.”

“Mind you, it was a bit on the nose, proposing on the five-year anniversary of Camelot.” Arthur noted. “I’m not surprised he picked the obvious date.”

Merlin chuckled. “ _You_ picked the obvious date, love.”

Arthur gave him a cocky look. “Would you rather I withdraw my proposal?”

Merlin rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t hold a smile.

"Even you should know _that_ answer."


End file.
